Emirates Airlines - UAE

I had a very mixed experience with Emirates recently. It was the first time I had flown with them and after reading the reviews on Ciao was prepared for a really nice flight. We flew Emirates from Birmingham to Dubai, and then onwards to Bangkok.

Online check in is excellent and I would recommend this to anybody that has access to the internet, straight forward and no queues at the airport, unfortunately we were not able to use this service on the return journey as the aircraft was coming from Sydney - this is where the problems started and I shall go into further details later on in the review.

The flight leaving Birmingham was on time, but the plane (Boeing 777) was extremely tatty, I was sat on a seat that was of a different colour to all the others and the warning bells started ringing when it seemed the chair was not going to go back. I was crammed in a window seat and the leg room was abominal, I am an averaged size 5"6 female so i dread to think how some of the men coped! (I have had twice the leg room on Easyjet!) There was some kind of plastic box fixed underneath the seat infront of me which meant I could not put my feet under the seat which half way into a 7 hour flight became increasingly painful until I felt as if I was going to cry with frustration. My seat didnt go back so when "mr awkward" infront of me pushed the seat infront to maximum stretch his seat was about 5 inches from my face, which meant I couldnt use the on board entertainment.

On the first leg of the flight the onboard entertainment was prehistoric, a lot of the screens were cracked and didnt work, and it was a case of the films started playing as the aircraft took off and if you missed it - you missed it, there was no "interactive" feature. On the 2nd flight to Dubai the aircraft had the new Emirates "ICE" entertainment which in all fairness is fantastic - i can see why it was voted the best in the world. Just the music selection alone could take you from Auckland and back - and back again to even stratch the surface of! There are also the newest films on demand, a TV channel and lots and lots of sub tv channels showing Discovery, History channel etc.

The food on both flights was served within minutes of the aircraft reaching altitude and there is a nice touch where they hand out menus - but to be honest they way I was crammed into my seat on both flights my awareness of "nice touches" was somewhat distorted. The food was ok - its airline food. There was no choice - you are set the menu and thats that. On the return from Thailand that was a pain because it was Salmon followed by Perch .. fish and fish, and being a non fish eater I didnt eat. I asked at check in for the "bland meal" option and the info hadnt got through to the crew so i went without (didnt matter we had a burger king in the airport :) There was only one meal on both flights and as both are in excess of 7 hours me and my sister agreed we could have done with a snack towards the end. The drinks trolley comes around once, and then any other drinks you want you have to "bing" the crew, which I always feel embarrassed about as I dont want to be seen as one of those demanding passengers.

Booking onto the return flight was a nightmare ... Bangkok airport is a NIGHTMARE anyway, and we were 7 hours early for the flight, because we couldnt check in online we went to the Emirates desk and asked if we could reserve seats together before check in "of course madam" was the reply and we proceeded to stand at the desk for half an hour while he clicked away on the keypad and got us exactly what we wanted ... we walked away feeling really pleased! BUT when we got to check in the info hadnt got through and we ended up sitting miles away from one another squashed in between various Australian families - we were not happy at all. Thats the thing we have found with Emirates, its all smiles and "can do" but nothing actually gets DONE its like there is some kind of total communication breakdown.

So, in conclusion, on time, ok food, great entertainment as long as you have the newer aircraft with ICE installed,Dubai airport is SUBLIME - dont be put off by the transfers, its the best bit! On the negative side, dont ask for anything - you wont get it (although they will smile and say yes), abominal legroom on all flights, passengers packed in like sardines, crap customer service (in our experience), tatty planes that have seen much better days.

From our experience the grand days of Emirates must have passed and maybe they trade on their name and experiences of when maybe they were a luxury airline? This economy passenger wont be booking again ....