philduck

Thought I would share with you my experience of boarding EK37, DXB-BHX on 27th April, 2015. Travelling on reward ticket in economy on final leg of BHX-SIN-BHX trip. Arrived in the boarding area at the appointed time. Announcement that Gold /Silver members could board. There was what can only be described as a melee by the stairs-access to boarding as a large number of economy class passengers had gathered in anticipation of boarding. I politely asked the woman in front of me to allow me to pass by so that I could board. She accused me of 'pushing in'. I explained that it was Emirates policy to allow FF's with status to board first and this had just been announced.. Her partner, who proved to be both rude and aggressive, turned towards me and blocked my way. I asked the Emirates employee at the boarding point to explain to them Emirates policy. She seemed unable to control the situation. The husband became extremely aggressive and began shouting expletives directed at me and threatening me with violence. The Emirates employee did nothing to intervene. Eventually I just pushed forward and boarded the flight. Any comments?

m3red

This should not have happened but it is a pet peeve. Flying Y you should have very low expectations although this is clearly not a problem restricted to EK. GATE LICE!

subject2load

I disagree totally with your 'low expectations in Y' theory m3red. This is not about Y class travel.

The core issue here is that OP philduck is a Gold member and as such has every right to enjoy the privileges earned & promised to him. It's perfectly possible that in acquiring his Gold status he has spent far more money with EK than many of the F or J pax boarding his same flight, so cabin class is irrelevant as regards expectations of a Gold member.

Too often I have seen EK ground staff do nothing to enforce correct boarding procedures. Saying that the problem is not restricted to EK - whilst undeniably true - provides no justification for this lazy standard of service. It's the equivalent of saying "we'll be as bad as our competitors ...."

Airlines are quick to extol the stated benefits of their FF schemes when promoting them in glossy brochures or on the web, but much less keen to ensure those benefits are delivered. In this specific scenario, I genuinely believe that EK staff must bear some responsibility for the abuse suffered by philduck.

m3red

Read the ba forum if you want to hear moans about boarding - most of the plane are of status that allows them priority boarding!

Even when in y as gold I'd have little expectations - I don't disagree it's wrong it's just where I've set my expectation levels with ek.

One of the best things about j and f is priority boarding, I cringe every time I go to Cmb and try to board past the hoards of people queuing...

philduck

Interestingly...I travelled in J on EK37 in November and the situation was only a little better. On boarding with a another Business Class passenger a comment was made to us about 'pushing in'. The real issue here is about the organisation of boarding for this flight. Whenever I have flown this route there has been no clear demarcation between boarding for those with 'status'. In SIN , for example, there is one distinct entrance for first, business, platinum, gold and silver and another for economy. There appears to be no signage at all for EK37.
Emirates staff often aren't assertive enough to deal with unruly behaviour. In my situation the unruly passenger was loudly swearing at me and threatening violence.

subject2load

m3red - No, I really don't want to hear moans about boarding - what I want is for airlines to address the situation with a lot more discipline.

You say that one of the 'best things' about F & J is priority boarding. Er .....it SHOULD be one of the best things, because that's part of what we pay for. It generally works well with the A380 for obvious reasons (except at remote stands ) but, with different aircraft and at certain airports - not least DXB, where there is no excuse for not getting it right - the procedure can very often descend into the same shambles for F & J pax as it can for status pax in Y, as described by philduck.

If you have not experienced /witnessed something similar yourself, you must be truly blessed .....

jackiedada

I think that's totally uncalled for m3red, especially from an 'Ambassador'. I think the OP has a genuine issue and the EK staff should have helped him out. Nothing to do with flying Y.

RadioGirl

It's not worth a separate thread so I'll tag on to this one with my experience on EK 89 DXB-GVA last week.

Boarding was from a bus gate C40; gate area was standing-room-only. They called zones C,D,E,F (?); I was in zone D. (J and F were told to wait; no mention of Gold/Plat.) I got on the second bus for the tour of the entire airport. When we arrived at the 777, the first bus had just pulled up at the rear stairs, mine at the forward stairs.

Consequently, passengers from the first bus were moving forward in the aisles to find their seats while those from the second bus were (trying to) move backwards to theirs. I heard "this is really stupid" from a dozen people in three different languages. Some tried to move out of the way for others but there was one rather stocky guy who just barged through, back and forth, three times, clearly confused about where his seat was.

I might have expected this at an outstation but thought EK at DXB would have the system sorted out better than this.

eternaltransit

I'm finding that DXB lately is the most disorganised station in the entire network - I was travelling with my father recently and we had a bus from a remote stand. He requires wheelchair assistance for walking long distances, so here we are at the J/F "premium" bus transfer point. We had to wait 45 minutes for it (and yes, it was booked, and no, they had no clue what was going on: it took 20 minutes for a dnata person to appear, and 15 for EK staff to man the transfer desk) - on a 150 minute connection, ended up getting to the gate 5 minutes before boarding...

Even more ironically, the incoming flight landed at Golf stands (which are round the corner from A gates) - but the buses drive all the way past that all the way to the bus drop off, which for J/F pax is between the B and C concourses...and the departing flight was from the A concourse.

dnata need a bit of a kick up the backside, I think! The airport may be expanding to cope, but their ground handling isn't. That said, I now have more of a personal experience with what happens if you fall through the cracks of the system - especially at a location where the corporate culture really seems to be to shift the problem to someone else if it's not exactly yours!

m3red

I'm not saying its right. I'm saying that I've travelled a lot in the last 3 years and there are a lot of golds, too many in fact and that as a y in gold you should be treated differently but should not expect to be...

It's an opinion based on what I see...the rare times I've travelled in y as gold it's been awful maya as well have had no status aside from lounge access...

gorbatzjov

My company's policy is only to travel in Y, and preferably Special Y or Saver Y tickets. I hold a Gold card for 3 years now, with some chance of getting Plat this year. This means, though I (i.e. my company) maybe don't spend as much money, I do fly a lot on EK. Does that mean I should not expect to be treated differently from occasional flyers? I earned it and as such I do expect it! As close as EK enfoces their T&C's on cheap tickets, as close will I enforce EK to provide services up to the stated status benefits. That being said, I luckily have never had any problems using priority boarding and status recognition on EK is much better than on LH/LX/OS/SN/TK or KL/AF if you ask me.

RichL

There was another thread I think about boarding EK39 (pure coincidence on my part) I don't think it is anything to do with the gate facilities being rubbish (as its a lottery which gate you depart from at DXB, I don't think its specific each time like C54 at BHX which the Emirates flights always pull up to)

You can understand why someone would think you were pushing in, gold or not, if you are all queuing up for economy, however I don't think it would have been very wise for him to have punched you.

There seems to be less gate agents though just lately.

philduck

RichL. Two gates are available for boarding at BHX..42 and 44. Gate 42 is specifically for Business Class, Platinum , Gold and Silver. This boarding is segregated from gate 44 which is designated Economy only. I stand by my point. Where such segregation of boarding occurs incidents, such as the one I have mentioned, are less likely to happen. I agree that there now appear to be fewer Emirates staff 'policing' the actual boarding process. Further, there was no queuing process at the gate in DXB...it could only be described as a melee. This was despite the idea of Zonal boarding!!.

pokeable

DXB boarding seems to be a clusterf*ck.

DXB-IAD a couple of weeks ago, C concourse (forgot the gate but it had a gate on the business lounge level). They opened the J gate 15 minutes AFTER they began general boarding...so when we got downstairs, there was already a line extending from the plane back out to the gate.

Took about 20 minutes to get to our seats

TaipeiWang

just go to the business class boarding gate area..