Making a long journey effortless (Emirates)

Member Name: drewboy

Product:	Emirates
Date:	31/08/04 (2157 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Seats, Entertainment, Food

Disadvantages: None

I recently flew from the UK to Australia for a 5 week holiday and got there with this fantastic airline.

Having flown long haul in the past with other airlines I was not looking forward to the flight as this would be the longest I had done.

The flight started in Manchester at the repectable time of about 7pm (which left on time) with an hour stop in Dubi and then arrived in Sydney at about 9am (local time) In total, this made the journey about 22 hrs.

On boarding the flight, there was the normal airline practise of greeting the passangers from the staff who all looked very smart in the company uniform. They were very courious and there was a good selection of newspapers you could pick up ranging from the standard British ones through the Arab papers in both English and Arabic. After being directed to our seats, I found that the seating configuration was a bit different from the normal three seats then four and back to three, instead being set up in a two - four - two format. This small detail REALLY makes the difference because it means that you will only ever have to ask one person to move to get out of your seat to walk around. With one flight being 7 hrs and the other being 14 hrs, this is no small thing. The seats themselfs were really good for economy class. More space than any other plane I've been on and a very usefull swivel support for your thighs to rest on with good lumber support as well.

The Entertainment on the flights were excellent. The first flight (manchester to dubi) had programs that rolled on through the schedule in the in flight magazine and had plenty of choice between movies, tv shows, radio and video games. The second flight was even better. You could start any of the programms or films at ANY point you wanted so you dont have to wait for them to start over. It also had a juke box in it with every possible popular, jazz, classical albums from almost any artist you could think of. It also had EVERY nu

mber one british single since about 1950 which kept me amused for hours. On both flights you could phone any other seat in the plane (handy if your party had to seat seperately) or any where in the world for $5 (US)per minute by swiping your credit card in the phone handset. The second flight also gave you the option to send SMS messages and email from the sky!! This was very useful as the plane was slightly delayed in Dubai so I could txt the person in Sydney who was picking me up to tell them I would be a bit late to which she was able to reply!

The food was great, really tasty and a decent choice. You could get free drinks any time you wanted and the staff could not have been more helpfull.

The main thing that did it for me was that I had a panic attack 10 mins into the 14hr flight home from sydney to dubai and thanks to the fantastic staff who came to me before I even needed to summon them about it - the member of staff said she saw me looking unwell and just wanted to check I was ok - I managed to contain it. On a 14hr flight, for anyone who has experienced a panic attack, it would have been a living hell stuck in that plane.

If Australia isn't where you want to go however, the do fly to over 70 different destinations world wide, most of which will fly though their 'hub' airport in Dubai and connect you to another flight. In the UK, you can fly from Glasgow (newly added), Manchester, Birmingham and London so there should be an airport close to most people.

They also have a very good website which your can book through or find out what meals or entertainment will be available on your particular flight together with information on the Dubai and a lot of the other destinations they offer.

http://www.emirates.com/uk/index.asp

The have a loyalty scheme called Skywards in which you collect points everytime you fly and then can redeam towards future travel. This looks a very good scheme since a l
ot of the flights are long haul so you would collec
t quite a lot quite quickly if you do a lot of travelling.
So all in all I simply cannot praise the airline more and will put them 1st in the list for any long haul travel plans I have in the future.

If you can afford it, from the look of business class and first class, they look even better and they will even arrange a chaffeur to pick you up at your destination airport to take you to your hotel!

I booked with this airline through my current account features and the flight cost me about £900 which although slightly discounted, was the most direct flight for the least amount of money. I could have gone with a company for less but would have had FOUR stops. I would strongly advice that for a long haul, the lowest stops you can get the better, and Emirates were the best value when I booked my flights.

Try them, you won't be dissapointed.

Summary: