I've been traveling on business to the Netherlands (Leiden, about 30 minutes outside of Amsterdam) and Bangalore the past couple weeks. Travelling for business in and of itself is different, but I've been able to long-haul on a few different airlines, different planes and in a different way (more about this in a minute), so I think it is time I give some little feedback, especially since I have a few (many) bones to pick:
* Despite their seeming omnipresence on so many routes globally, I've been on Emirates just once and never through Dubai, until now. I flew them from Amsterdam to Bangalore, getting a chance to go on their A380-800, B777-300ER and spend a lot of time in Dubai International. On the whole, I am thoroughly unimpressed
* For the second time on Emirates, I had the incredible joy of waiting 90 minutes after takeoff to get my food on an overnight red-eye. The amount of time they took to start serving (I was in the second row so it wasn't like I was waiting a while after they did start) is absurd. This is a 6-hour flight overnight. You cannot start serving a quarter into that flight. This lended itself to them putting the lights off in the cabin a good two-and-a-half hours into flight. Really pathetic for a flight that most people would probably try to get some sleep on
* The two aspects I found the best of my previous Emirates flight (New York JFK to Milan) were fairly bad this time around. Their food service was at an incredibly high level in terms of both amount and quality - neither was true this time around. Then, their beer service was incredibly uninspired. Having just Heineken, Amstel and Budweiser is ridiculous. Even the shitty US airlines have started serving decent more mainstream craft beer. Then, their movie selection was a disaster. Maybe it's that I'm unimpressed with the current selection of 'new releases' but the other options were a dozen or so random selection of movies from 1980-2010, and a near complete set of Marvel movies. I resorted to attempting to watch Valkyrie for the first time I saw it in theaters before giving up halfway and decided to watch Season 3 of Silicon Valley instead
* Finally, let's get to Dubai's airport, which has some redeeming qualities. I'll get to their irredeeming one in a minute, but the airport was grand, well laid out, impressive and had some nice restaurants, including a Shake Shack for fucks sake! That was an incredibly welcome site, even if I didn't partake. The airport too had barely more than Budweiser, Heneiken or Amstel - but they did have Tiger on tap.
* Actually, I forgot maybe the most reprehensible part of Emirates' service. I was placed in 'Group F' for boarding - the last group. They seemingly group passengers by location in the plane from back to front, so this wasn't surprising. I was expecting a long wait. What I was not expecting was in Dubai for the order to go 'First & Business (Group A-B)', Group C, Group D, Group E and then go back to the beginning. After Group E seemingly finished and we were left with the ~20 of us in Group F, they announced First and Business class again, not once but twice. I'm sorry, no one in First or Business class hasn't boarded. If they have, too bad, they should not benefit from their abhorrent laziness. Then, more shockingly, they announced Group E again. This was outrageous. Us Group F-ers did not have some steerage class ticket, we were not economy basic. We had Group F because we were in the front, not because we deserve to have classes that already had ample time called again without us being able to board.
* OK, let's move on from Emirates to some better experiences (though one last gripe). Somehow, I was able to finess my way onto Singapore Airlines as part of my trip to Amsterdam, as they fly the New York to Frankfurt leg before continuing to Singapore (I did that sector the other way on way final trips of my Round the World trip in 2013). The experience was every bit as good as the first time. Great food, with thai beef salad along with Malaysian Pork curry for dinner. Great drinks, with ice cold Singha beer along with a well made Singapore Sling. The plane was empty allowing me to stretch out over three seats. They had fine movie selection, nice menus, and a perfectly temperate towel to refresh yourself at the start of the flight. Singapore Airlines truly is beyond anything else.
* Quick aside before I get to my point about airport lounges, but I am a total mileage hoarder. I've gotten every credit card imagineable, taken advantage of any discount, getting the chance to build up a fortress of miles across myriad airlines and hotel chains. My white whale, though, was the Chase Sapphire Reserve card, which was an amatuer mileage compiler's delight. I was one of the people who got declined for their 100,000 mile bonus due to having opened too many cards too recently. Not only did I not get the miles, or the travel credits, I didn't get the accompanying Priority Pass allowing access into hundreds of lounges. My two friends who I went to Peru with both had it, lording it over me every time we entered an airport. Well, I impulse got the Citi Prestige card which comes with the same Priority Pass, and after using it three times, I'm kind of over it.
* The club at JFK Terminal 4 was great. Nice seats with outlets at basically all of them. Decent selection of snacks to eat at dinner time. Good selection of liqour and cold, refrigerated beer both mainstream and craft. Very impressed by the JFK lounge. Not so much in both Amsterdam (somewhat surprising) and Dubai (very surprising). Amsterdam's was truly bad, despite being at peak departure time in the night bank, their food selection was invisible and the only beer they had was Heneiken. With Dubai, it wasn't the best time (morning), but their food selection was equally bad, and the place wasn't even well air conditioned (it was open air on the 4th floor of the departures area). I understand in most cases these are lounges not affiliated with any one airline, let alone hub airlines (KLM for Amsterdam and Emirates in Dubai) and those would have better lounges. But I would not have expected to say that the best lounge I've seen so far is in JFK, what with our terrible airports. Very Sad!
* Finally, Frankfurt. My transfer in Frankfurt was so strange. The walk from my arrival date through to security to the departure area was seemingly three miles long despite the fact the two concourses (where I arrived and departed) are fairly close to each other. Then, for the first time ever, I was scolded for not putting my liquids in a plastic bag and leaving them in my bathroom case. During security, they pulled my handbag aside, swabbed it and then the guy went through my bag. He pulled out my case, opened it up and placed each small liquid container into a plastic bag and put it all back in. I went on my way, but in retrospect I should have just ripped open the plastic bag and put the liquids back in my case. I don't play like that.
* I have two more flights left. First a relatively short hop from Bangalore to Doha in the middle of the night (3:50 depart, 5:50 arrival), and then a 14-hour haul back to JFK. I am excited for it as I get to take Qatar Airways for the first time. I don't get to take their A350-900 as that operates on the other Doha-JFK flight, but I do get to finish off the ME3 and get to make a real comparison. Emirates is squarely in 3rd, and I don't foresee Qatar being worse.
* Despite their seeming omnipresence on so many routes globally, I've been on Emirates just once and never through Dubai, until now. I flew them from Amsterdam to Bangalore, getting a chance to go on their A380-800, B777-300ER and spend a lot of time in Dubai International. On the whole, I am thoroughly unimpressed
* For the second time on Emirates, I had the incredible joy of waiting 90 minutes after takeoff to get my food on an overnight red-eye. The amount of time they took to start serving (I was in the second row so it wasn't like I was waiting a while after they did start) is absurd. This is a 6-hour flight overnight. You cannot start serving a quarter into that flight. This lended itself to them putting the lights off in the cabin a good two-and-a-half hours into flight. Really pathetic for a flight that most people would probably try to get some sleep on
* The two aspects I found the best of my previous Emirates flight (New York JFK to Milan) were fairly bad this time around. Their food service was at an incredibly high level in terms of both amount and quality - neither was true this time around. Then, their beer service was incredibly uninspired. Having just Heineken, Amstel and Budweiser is ridiculous. Even the shitty US airlines have started serving decent more mainstream craft beer. Then, their movie selection was a disaster. Maybe it's that I'm unimpressed with the current selection of 'new releases' but the other options were a dozen or so random selection of movies from 1980-2010, and a near complete set of Marvel movies. I resorted to attempting to watch Valkyrie for the first time I saw it in theaters before giving up halfway and decided to watch Season 3 of Silicon Valley instead
* Finally, let's get to Dubai's airport, which has some redeeming qualities. I'll get to their irredeeming one in a minute, but the airport was grand, well laid out, impressive and had some nice restaurants, including a Shake Shack for fucks sake! That was an incredibly welcome site, even if I didn't partake. The airport too had barely more than Budweiser, Heneiken or Amstel - but they did have Tiger on tap.
* Actually, I forgot maybe the most reprehensible part of Emirates' service. I was placed in 'Group F' for boarding - the last group. They seemingly group passengers by location in the plane from back to front, so this wasn't surprising. I was expecting a long wait. What I was not expecting was in Dubai for the order to go 'First & Business (Group A-B)', Group C, Group D, Group E and then go back to the beginning. After Group E seemingly finished and we were left with the ~20 of us in Group F, they announced First and Business class again, not once but twice. I'm sorry, no one in First or Business class hasn't boarded. If they have, too bad, they should not benefit from their abhorrent laziness. Then, more shockingly, they announced Group E again. This was outrageous. Us Group F-ers did not have some steerage class ticket, we were not economy basic. We had Group F because we were in the front, not because we deserve to have classes that already had ample time called again without us being able to board.
* OK, let's move on from Emirates to some better experiences (though one last gripe). Somehow, I was able to finess my way onto Singapore Airlines as part of my trip to Amsterdam, as they fly the New York to Frankfurt leg before continuing to Singapore (I did that sector the other way on way final trips of my Round the World trip in 2013). The experience was every bit as good as the first time. Great food, with thai beef salad along with Malaysian Pork curry for dinner. Great drinks, with ice cold Singha beer along with a well made Singapore Sling. The plane was empty allowing me to stretch out over three seats. They had fine movie selection, nice menus, and a perfectly temperate towel to refresh yourself at the start of the flight. Singapore Airlines truly is beyond anything else.
* Quick aside before I get to my point about airport lounges, but I am a total mileage hoarder. I've gotten every credit card imagineable, taken advantage of any discount, getting the chance to build up a fortress of miles across myriad airlines and hotel chains. My white whale, though, was the Chase Sapphire Reserve card, which was an amatuer mileage compiler's delight. I was one of the people who got declined for their 100,000 mile bonus due to having opened too many cards too recently. Not only did I not get the miles, or the travel credits, I didn't get the accompanying Priority Pass allowing access into hundreds of lounges. My two friends who I went to Peru with both had it, lording it over me every time we entered an airport. Well, I impulse got the Citi Prestige card which comes with the same Priority Pass, and after using it three times, I'm kind of over it.
* The club at JFK Terminal 4 was great. Nice seats with outlets at basically all of them. Decent selection of snacks to eat at dinner time. Good selection of liqour and cold, refrigerated beer both mainstream and craft. Very impressed by the JFK lounge. Not so much in both Amsterdam (somewhat surprising) and Dubai (very surprising). Amsterdam's was truly bad, despite being at peak departure time in the night bank, their food selection was invisible and the only beer they had was Heneiken. With Dubai, it wasn't the best time (morning), but their food selection was equally bad, and the place wasn't even well air conditioned (it was open air on the 4th floor of the departures area). I understand in most cases these are lounges not affiliated with any one airline, let alone hub airlines (KLM for Amsterdam and Emirates in Dubai) and those would have better lounges. But I would not have expected to say that the best lounge I've seen so far is in JFK, what with our terrible airports. Very Sad!
* Finally, Frankfurt. My transfer in Frankfurt was so strange. The walk from my arrival date through to security to the departure area was seemingly three miles long despite the fact the two concourses (where I arrived and departed) are fairly close to each other. Then, for the first time ever, I was scolded for not putting my liquids in a plastic bag and leaving them in my bathroom case. During security, they pulled my handbag aside, swabbed it and then the guy went through my bag. He pulled out my case, opened it up and placed each small liquid container into a plastic bag and put it all back in. I went on my way, but in retrospect I should have just ripped open the plastic bag and put the liquids back in my case. I don't play like that.
* I have two more flights left. First a relatively short hop from Bangalore to Doha in the middle of the night (3:50 depart, 5:50 arrival), and then a 14-hour haul back to JFK. I am excited for it as I get to take Qatar Airways for the first time. I don't get to take their A350-900 as that operates on the other Doha-JFK flight, but I do get to finish off the ME3 and get to make a real comparison. Emirates is squarely in 3rd, and I don't foresee Qatar being worse.
