flydubai

My first experience with FlyDubai was okay better than I expected based on what I read. I found my two flights DXB-TBS-DXB on time and in very nice looking planes. Staff were crisp and friendly but the seats were far too close to each other. When the passenger in front put his seat back the IFE monitor nearly took my teeth out! Not to mention the monitor screen is very hot and on both my flights the AC in the plane was about the temp to roast chickens. And you had to pay for everything except for a small cup of water. I know it is a low cost airline but I have never had to pay for weak coffee before. The IFE was very basic unless you forked up about 15 AED for basic service.

Flydubai to and from Port Sudan. Both flights were exactly on time with no issues. Planes appeared new and clean. No check-in queue at all in Dubai but Port Sudan was a bit of a mess with waits up to an hour. Prepaid baggage extra legroom seats and meals were all provided without issue. IFE gave free flight status and map everything else required payment so not sure of it's value. Very long bus ride back to DXB immigration (~15 minutes) but virtually no queue at immigration. T2 facilities basic but adequate.

I have to use it often as I go back home always every weekend. They average 1 hour delay Cabin staff are usually fine but the ground staff is terminal 2 are awful. They are never on time out of 30+ trip I did FlyDubai was on time probably twice or 3 times.

Business class Dubai to Kuwait. Check in counters for business barricaded with no representative around to open and assist. Upon asking around one person did come out. Check in agent was friendly and efficient. No business agent per say as advertised. Lounge in T2 even though its new was over crowded. If flydubai expects to operate a dedicated business class in all its flights in the future they will have a problem as the lounge area is very small - both the bar and buffet area in addition to this since its a marhaba lounge most of the credit cards guests are also welcomed. Boarding was with economy class onboard a dedicated crew member who was efficient and friendly. Seat good for short hops better than European low cost business class who block the middle seat. Dinner service only a cold sandwich and a desert on a tray which when compared to emirates airlines catering for the same sector in economy is much better but here your paying for J in a low cost carrier.

My wife and I flew from Bucharest to Colombo and return with a stop in Dubai. On the first Segment Bucharest - Dubai the plane was delayed by 1 hour. In Dubai on segment 2 another 2 hours. But as long as the flight is not delayed by 5+ hours I don't think this is a major problem. On return from Colombo segments 3 and 4 were on time not even 1 min delay. All 4 segments were operated by 737-800 next gen Sky interior new planes. Happy with legroom and space between seats. I knew from the beginning that it's a Low Cost Airline and I had to pay for all services. It was my choice to fly with them and I'm very happy. The crew from all 4 segments was very polite and ready to answer all questions. The only thing I didn't like was the payment process on board. If you pay with Euro they will give you change in AED. Same for US Dollars. And you will have to pay 8 AED for a water if you pay with Euro.

My wife and I took 2 flights with Fly Dubai - Dubai to Amman return. Onboard issues: legroom won't be an issue if you are shorter than 6' (which I'm not) yes I understand the business model is a low-cost carrier but paying for water? The IFE is useless unless you want to watch the flight map so be prepared to pay for any sort of entertainment. My main concern with Fly Dubai however is that both flights were each over 1 hour late. Having reviewed some forums about Fly Dubai this seems to be a trend of theirs. What made this worse is that our return flight was followed by an international connection and in addition to the unexplained 1 hour delay our checked bags took 1 hour to come out. We came within minutes of missing our connection so beware if you have a connection and a Fly Dubai flight is involved - you'd better consider giving yourself more than enough time in between flights to account for their unreliability of avoid them altogether.

Dubai to Doha. Flight was terrible. The mostly young crew was the loudest most obnoxious crew I've ever come across in 30 years of travel. They spent the entire flight loudly laughing and exchanging jokes among themselves in the galley disturbing the passengers. To make matters worse one very irritating female flight attendant was criticizing some passengers (using curse words) not caring whether anyone heard her or not. Her behavior is simply unacceptable. Never ever again.

My wife and I boarded a Flydubai flight when she was 7 months pregnant (which is allowed by all international airlines and she had the necessary doctor papers to take this flight). To cut a long story short the ground staff of Flydubai refused to give us the seats we paid 200 AED extras for. That was fine (security always takes priority) but they refused also to give us alternative seats suitable for a pregnant woman gave us ad-hoc seats totally unsuitable for pregnancy and separated us on top of this. Staff used an inappropriate tone. On board things were not much better and the offensive tone staff used made even other passengers take our defence. We finally managed to get appropriate seats thanks to other passengers. To ad to this the pre-purchased meal we ordered and paid for was not available on the plane.

Dubai - Kathmandu return. Both flights delayed by an hour and very busy. Outbound agents at the gate wisely checked in lots of hand luggage into the hold (for free) due to minimal storage space onboard. Outbound flight had no IFE and was disappointed with no inflight magazine (but then they have taken out the seat pockets so there would be nowhere to put it anyway!). Return flight was on a brand new brilliant B737 with personal IFE and mood lighting. Excellent crew who handled a medical emergency well and all were very engaging with passengers - really good to see. Transfer to T3 to connect with Emirates was smooth although distances are long so it takes time. Had to collect boarding pass in DXB which wasn't the case when checking in out the inbound - be good to resolve this - although reassuring that he baggage tickets were scanned and confirmed and all arrived at final destination.

Overall I was impressed with the efficiency and professionalism of FlyDubai and staff. Several negatives stand out however that fellow travelers should pay attention to. First you need to understand the business model requires paying extra for everything. Your assigned seat any checked luggage water or food on the flight inflight entertainment - you name it. The first flight I was on had no video onboard not even screens on the center aisle. Second the return flight had video but the quality of the touch screens was so poor and unmanageable that I was not even tempted to watch a movie for fear of it being messed up. I noticed very few people watching movies on the screen - instead they read or watched movies on the tablets. I also noticed that the flight staff struggled to get the touch screens they used to work. They had to keep touching them to get it to respond. They really should fix that. The flight staff were professional but only one of the two stewardesses was friendly. Thirdly the return flight was delayed one hour with no explanation from the rather unfriendly ground crew who were running the door. As a result we got into Dubai 40 minutes late - and then we had to wait 30 minutes to get our luggage after getting through passport control! This was very frustrating at the end of a long day especially as there is no excuse for this is a modern airport. I don't think I will fly the airline again because on top of this I had to pay AED 640 for my car to be parked for 5 days in long term parking. Coming from Abu Dhabi to Dubai I would have been better to take a cab. This is not the airlines fault but fellow travelers would do well to be aware of this one.