Emirates

Singapore - Nice return on a business trip with a transit in Dubai both ways. Overall the quality of the trip was good. Seats comfortable slide suite doors a bit gimmicky but definitely help with privacy / quietness for sleeping. Didn't eat on all legs but when I did the quality of the a la carte food was excellent. Drinks list wide. ICE system has great content but the tablet style controller is sometimes unresponsive. In flight wifi / mobile connectivity only available on one leg out of four which was disappointing as the one leg that had it was a night leg when I wanted to sleep! Emirates First lounge in DXB very comfortable. All flights on time. Only complaints are that the cabins seemed too warm and that Dubai airport remains a bit of a mess for transit. Might be better when all construction works complete. Price for this First trip was barely any higher than Singapore Airlines Business class to Europe so on that basis the value for money is good. This is a regular trip for me and I'd consider EK next time.

First time to be disappointed by EK service. Arrived at the airport on time to find out that my flight to JED was delayed 7 hours not to mention check in staff didn't know why and why we had not been informed. Asked if I could leave DXB intl to go home and come back they said no since it was an estimated time and the plane might take off at any time. Stranded at DXB intl for 8 hours. Later on asked another member of ground crew about the update on my flight he was careless to even answer me properly. Onboard 2 female crew were shouting at passengers. Lack of communication from management to staff dealing with passengers is a major problem. On the return RUH-DXB flight on time A330-200 the oldest in EK fleet no entertainment only one meal option I was surprised that they are serving a full meal on this short 90 minutes flight. The most uncomfortable seat on a plane. Those aircraft's should be phased out immediately.

Travelling back from Bangkok on 23rd Feb our flight was scheduled to land in Dubai Airport at 00.30 local time. Due to the fog from the previous day in Dubai we were told when checking in that our flight from Bangkok would be delayed 2 hours making our departure time 22.40 instead of 20.40. When we received our boarding passes they were printed with a departure time of 00.10 meaning a delay of 3.5 hours. After 4 + hours of no updated information they called us to the gates. Eventually arrive in Dubai at around 5.30 am local time 5 hours after our scheduled arrival time. After an hour or so with very little movement in queues peoples patience began to wear thin. After 3+ hours we decided to try somewhere else in the airport for answers I eventually got on a flight at 5pm that day and arrived home around 40 hours after leaving my hotel in Bangkok. I am fast approaching 60 years have travelled all over the world using many airlines have experienced delays before but never have I encountered such lack of care.

LIS-DXB-KIX. Business Class. Two different experiences: LIS-DXB: Lisbon check-in was terrible. They even charged 6 kg (over 40 ridiculous) extra weight (at Euros48 per kg). Had to queue 50 min to pay them at a special counter with unprepared and unpleasant staff. Probably a gift for my 1st trip on EK. Boarding: total mess for all classes. No smile. Food wine and staff on board extremely pleasant. Brand new B777-300ER. Nice clean. DXB-KIX the opposite: fast boarding uneatable food very regular wines and no smile from staff except 1. Planes late on departure and arrival in both cases. no free Wi-fi in DXB. ICE great anyway. Flat bed is Ok.

Emirates A380 Sydney to Auckland economy returning business using points. Excellent service although the economy breakfast left a little to be desired. Great IFE using Emirate's ICE system. All in all a pleasant experience.

Sydney - Christchurch - Sydney. The flight over was acceptable with service pretty poor only one choice left out of two for the meal only one side of the sound in my headphones for IFE worked. Seats were cramped and uncomfortable. Flight back was poor. Flight was an hour late departing although they made up a lot of that time. Staff are quite rude tending to order you around and not showing much interest in customer comfort. My seat had a great big lump in the back like a spring had come loose or something. It was very uncomfortable. I told the FA who wasn't very interested but said she'd see if anything else was available after we took off. I told her I'd like to sit with my wife and she said 'its only a couple of hours so put up with it. It was so uncomfortable I'm not sure what I would have done if it had been a longer haul. food was OK had a choice this time IFE OK.

EK842 DOH-DXB + EK075 DXB-CDG - Very disappointing flights experience with Emirates. Lounge in DOH + Boarding error in DXB + Seat broken on A380 + On board service I could not escape the unpleasant experiences. Even the cabin crew usually smiling were unpleasant on both sectors and on DXB-CDG made mistakes in bar service. My seat was broken on A380 DXB-CDG sector and didn't work at all on a fully booked flight… It's not the 1st time this year.

Economy B777-300ER from Manchester to Perth via Dubai. What a pleasant surprise when boarding at Manchester. The seat pitch was far more than I expected I am 5'8" and there was more than enough room to stretch out. Yes the seats are narrow but I personally didn't find that to be a problem. The entertainment was ICE and not wide screen which was a disappointment as there wasn't as much on offer to watch as advertised. The food was great and the crew very attentive. Upon boarding at Dubai the IFE this time was ice wide screen and what a difference - absolutely superb. There was so much to choose from! Again the seating was great and the service first class. Return leg was the same routing. Only 84 passengers from Perth to Dubai so we were All able to stretch out and have a row each to ourselves. Older entertainment system again though. Return to Manchester was packed. Even more updated entertainment which huge screens hand held touchscreen device and a brilliant selection. Tip - if you're travelling economy on this type of aircraft try and get in the first section of economy as there's less people the no one walks past and no queue for the toilet. Avoid row 21 though as that is the last row of that cabin section and you do get people waiting for the toilet there. We had row 18 and 19ABC and they were great seats. I will definitely fly Emirates again.

EK 215 and EK 823. LAX-DXB and DXB-DMM. Pleasantly surprised was dreading this flight back because of the bad experience I had during the inbound flight. It wasn't a full flight and I had all 3 seats to myself so could lie down made the 16hours leg comfortable. Plenty of drink runs and the food was very good albeit a small quantity but it was spaced well so I wasn't hungry throughout. Attendants were attentive but some seemed disinterested and cabin service can get disorganized at times. ICE was great but did not use much and noticed its the same contents as before. Seemed like catering out of DXB was of poorer quality hence the return from LAX is better. Transit at DXB was good arrived in the evening so not a lot of people. DXB-DMM was a hit and miss food was very good or a 1 hour flight but cabin crew was very disorganized and always on a rush. Landing smooth and communication from the cockpits was ok. All in all was a much better flight than the previous one I had.

EK 313 and EK 312 - 17th Feb and 22nd Feb 2014. I've done 2 flights in the last week with Emirates 1 in Business and 1 in Economy and I have to say it's been very hit and miss with the service and food served. The Economy flight DXB to Tokyo and the return was in Business. Funny thing was the Economy journey was better reasonable food and service. The seats were good for Economy class decent pitch and leg room etc. The service in Business seemed very disorganized and slow and the food was very average. The seats I found very narrow and carried the vibrations of people walking past and the person next to me moving around. We were delayed nearly 5 hours on-route because of fog in Dubai which is not the airlines fault of course but a lack of communicating left everyone wondering what was going on. I was very surprised overall by the quality of the business experience. I'll be sticking with Qantas!