Emirates

PER-DXB-HAM. My first experience with Emirates Business Class. Started very well with the Chauffeur car. Staff at check in good. Lounge nicely presented. IFE in my seat did not work. Luckily seat next to me vacant. Impressive looking seat was surprisingly narrow and no elbow room. Found it hard to get comfortable. No amenity pack offered on either sector all the way to Hamburg. Found it very difficult to choose something I wanted to eat. Food too middle eastern with no choice offered friendly crew. Lounge in Dubai awful. Probably the worst I've had for a while. Far too overcrowded. HAM-DXB-PER: Chauffeur pick up lounge nice but hard to find. Much better flight than outbound. Same issue with food although this time I ate in the lounge where the food had more of a western flavour to it. Staff friendly and helpful. Different seat with better elbow room. IFE is a little awkward to use. My bag was damaged on arrival in Perth. The baggage services team in Perth were very helpful and my bag was replaced. As a Qantas frequent flyer this was a rewards trip so I'm not too devastated by the experience. If I had to spend full price on a business class fare I would probably look elsewhere. The lounge in Dubai and the seats being the major turn offs.

CPT to LHR via DXB in economy. Two full planes Boeing 777 and A380. Staff excellent helpful and pleasant. Both arrived early or on time. Boarding done by row numbers and well controlled. Seating on 777 narrower but I found more comfortable than the A380. Entertainment vast and varied. Food ok. But why do airlines still insist on providing hot breakfasts in the very early hours which are so unappetising. My poached eggs could have survived a set at Wimbledon! And three hours before landing at 4am when I had just got off to sleep - surely no need. I can't believe passengers want this - a light and healthy snack 90 mins before landing would be more preferable. Going for fruit platter meals in future. Off loaded at LHR quickly and despite a busy terminal through immigration and customs within 30mins of landing.

MAD-DXB-BKK Business Class (Frequent Flyer Gold Card holder) traveling approximately bi-monthly for over two years. I've noticed a marked deterioration in quality on this service and my last two flights have had problems which need bringing to the attention of a wider audience. I note from comments on this site that others have noted a similar deterioration in service on Emirates. On the first flight I was double charged by the airline. When I pointed this out to the Service Center I was initially told I was incorrect. After a second e-mail and a delay I was informed by another individual I had to prove that I had been overcharged. When I did this I was then told by a third employee to enter certain information via the web to obtain a refund. I tried several times but the information was clearly wrong. After a further delay a fourth employee suggested I was entering the data incorrectly. I tried again: same result. I then asked the matter to be escalated. No reply. Eventually after further e-mails a fifth employee agreed that the matter should be escalated. Over a month later I received an incomplete refund and a lame excuse for an apology. On my last flight EK385 the service was awful. My breakfast was initially not delivered. After trying to attract the attention of staff my meal some 45 minutes late was slammed down; it was as might be expected after being allowed to stew for that amount of time inedible. After asking for the Purser a 'Senior' eventually arrived who tried various displacement techniques to avoid apologising. I eventually forced an apology and was asked if I wanted 'something' (unspecified) to replace the disgusting plate. By this time the plane was descending. I asked again to see the Purser who eventually turned up and mumbled on about 'the girl' who was responsible. She disappeared to make the safety announcement prior to landing and I never saw her again. I have received no recompense. I would suggest that if you experience problems on Emirates don't expect prompt service genuine apologies or any recompense. You will have to deal with an obstructive Service Center staffed by arrogant and essentially incompetent individuals and an on board 'crew' who regard themselves as a superior class of persons who unless you are prepared to ingratiate yourself find providing a service beneath them. As there is ample choice of airlines on this route I certainly wont fly Emirates again and would advise caution if anyone is considering it as the alternatives which I have recently sampled are infinitely superior.

SYD-AKL-SYD and SYD-AKL-SYD my work booked these flights. To say the staff are rude is an understatement. Onboard staff were only interested in quickly serving the meals and you didn't even have time to finish eating off your tray before they whipped them away. Any rubbish left over they weren't interested in picking up with their precious little fingers. I buzzed for duty free for an hour and asked 3 people if I could buy some and kept getting told "I'll tell the girl I'll tell the girl" or "she should be coming through" only to find that "she" couldn't be bothered. Ground staff at both airports were rude and I was looked down on (it felt) for a being a Qantas business customer. Rude arrogant staff.

LHR-Auckland- LHR via Dubai April/May 2014 in A380. I thought the comfort of the A380 economy seats was better than other planes entertainment fantastic service good. The food wasn't always to my taste but that is my problem. All legs of the journey were on time would recommend.

BNE to FRA via DXB. Staff pleasant helpful and enthusiastic. Aircraft clean and looks modern and well maintained. Well stocked personal minibar. Punctual. Great food IFE is fantastic. I've done four flights with Emirates and will continue to fly with them. Pity they don't do transPacific flights to US/Canada.

ARN-AKL via DXB and SYD in Business. Very comfortable lounge in ARN. Clean aircraft ARN-DXB with attentive and pleasant FAs but come across as a bit inexperienced. Slow drink service during dinner and food ok but not great. The Business seat a bit cramped for my taste. Had the Dubai connect service at DXB (because of a long lay-over the airline puts you up in a hotel arranges transport and visa for you) and that was great. Nice to have a good bed for the night in an excellent hotel. Immigration into and out of Dubai very quick. Lounge in DXB was excellent (have a hard time understanding all the negative reviews about this - but admittedly did not use washrooms or showers. Food was great). Flight from DXB to AKL via SYD in 380. Excellent seat. Again very pleasant FAs but again somewhat inexperienced appearing. Again very slow drink service. Was given a before dinner drink. Then no drink with the starter but with the assurance that it was coming. It came when the starter was finished. Then the main meal arrived but no drink. That came after the meal was finished. Those things are not the end of the world but it comes across as somewhat unprofessional. Lounge in SYD was fine with nice shower and flight from SYD to AKL had a new crew that seemed more experienced. Overall though I was pleased especially considering the cost was significantly lower than on competing airlines. So in spite of missing out on a glass of wine or two I will do this again.

Auckland/Dubai/LHR economy connecting flight EK 1 to LHR delayed at Dubai for over 1hr but no explanation given by ground staff in fact appeared unprofessional not until on the aircraft did you get an adequate response from the captain who gave a full explanation. By coincidence my leg from Heathrow to Dubai was also delayed exactly 2 weeks earlier so wonder if they have a scheduling problem. The A380 is a huge aircraft and with its size comes big logistics the cabin crew were not particularly attentive and water for such a long flight was offered very infrequently and the service was not anywhere near the service I had been given by Asiana Airlines to Auckland a year earlier.

I travelled from Manchester to Hong Kong via Dubai. All flights were on-time the aircraft were modern clean and the food was good. The crew were professional friendly and helpful.

Dubai - Male 22nd February 2014 Flight EK0652. On the morning of 22nd February we boarded the flight in Dubai at the correct time despite their being some fog in which cleared by approximately 10.30am. We were held on the plane for over 7.5 hours and then had our flight cancelled and were disembarked. Told that once we left the plane an Emirates attendant would be waiting to show us where to go. After we left the plane we went through the airport doors to be offered two options 'arrivals' or 'transfers' and no-one had any idea where to go and no help was available. We saw a few Emirates staff around and when we went to them asking for assistance they just shrugged their shoulders and said we had to queue up at the desk. We queued for 2 hours and when we finally got to the front we were told that no information was available and that we had to come back in 20 minutes! We asked about hotel accommodation and was told that all hotels were booked. The lack of communication was terrible no announcements made no apologies. Finally after an exhaustive night and at about 4am Sunday we were told that everyone would not be able to fly until Monday. This debacle carried on until about 5.30am when we were told that we were going to fly after all at 11am Sunday. The journey took approximately 42 hours which should have been a four hour flight. The absolute worst part was having absolutely no information forthcoming - it was an absolute disgrace.