pomkiwi

Based on my recent experience - no

ioto1902

preference on what ? dishes and shower ?

m3red

Yes!

ioto1902

Forget it.
Quality of service is totally uneven and depends on the crew. You can't guess at boarding.

You have an advantage over first-timers : you know how it works.
So, grab it before somebody else does

avcritic

Start an aviation blog. There will be an FA waiting for you to offer EK's best service.

SuiteFlight

Had four long haul Emirates First flights this week, three on the A380 (the other the 777ER), on the three A380 flights the shower time booking all seemed to be done by Skywards/Qantas frequent flier tier (on one very full flight, I even overheard one of the crew telling a DYKWIA ahead of me who got a bit chippy asking why he was wasn't asked before me, that requests are taken by status not seat order). Take from that what you will, but it seemed a consistent thing on my trip.

It seemed to be an influencer on meal orders, but inconsistently so, so I don't think I can offer much on that element.

SuiteFlight

Scarcity makes prioritising resource allocation necessary (even with the best of intentions, this sometimes happens and not everyone can be at the front of the queue - or go Lord of the Flies). It's already part of the airline landscape that same cabin occupants are stratified a little by airlines (whether it's by hidden CIV scores, or public frequent flyer status, etc) even when there is no scarcity involved. So if you can't give everything to everyone (or at the same time) in that cabin, it's preferably done in some consistent manner that just randomly. And I agree with eternaltransit that if it's a industry discount or "was hosted by" comp ticket then you might be one of the first to wait or go without or receive a lower grade amenity if scarcity hits (and I imagine op-ups after that, if it's a huge scarcity). You don't want to rude or tactless about it, but I imagine if someone goes DYKWIA about it, you've got little choice but to be honest about why they aren't top of the queue (talking in general here, rather than in response to any specific incident).

pomkiwi

Well nothing further has been heard from EK. Ironically a pax was brought up by the crew to lie down in an empty suite on our return from BNE and I offered help (as I am a Dr) which fortunately wasn't needed.

I have looked around more carefully for our next trip than I might have done and found Qatar to be cheaper in J to our destination so have put our money with them. Looking at prices for next year's trip to Aus/NZ, EK are now Ł1k per person more expensive in F than BA for normal fares and over Ł2k when there is a BA sale on. I am Plat who will not retain status at the forthcoming review and my wife is Gold and drops to Silver. Neither of us has any future travel booked with EK.
It looks to me that EK prices have gone up substantially in recent months and although in the past I might have paid a little more to stay with a carrier I was familiar and comfortable with I'm not in that mood at the moment.

subject2load

Hi there pomkiwi,

I was extremely interested to read your post.

I myself decided to look around for my next trip to Australia, having stuck loyally with EK in recent years. In the end I booked with Cathay (and in fact will fly one of the sectors on a QR codeshare, so looking forward to my first taste of the 787)

In my case I can't honestly say I was prompted to switch because of any service-related issues. I have generally been well-treated on all my EK travels - and sometimes extremely well. There has only been one flight which gave cause to make a formal complaint, and on balance I feel they responded in a satisfactory (though no more than that) manner.

No, I switched because I believe it makes sense to experience at first hand what the competition is offering, and I was also able to save a significant amount of cash vs EK pricing on similar routings.

Your very unfortunate on-board incident really did stick in my mind long after you first told us about it. We read of many gripes & moans here of course, but I always got the sense that you are a particularly fair-minded passenger with very clear - but not unrealistic - expectations. I drew a mental analogy with receiving really poor service in a restaurant and then, having asked to speak to the manager and calmly explaining the cause of grievance, you were simply accused of fabricating the whole thing and telling a pack of lies.

It is one thing to be disappointed by a lapse in service standards at one time or another : even the best-run organisations can fail to deliver. However, I have always believed that the nature of the response is what marks out those businesses which place 'customer recovery' high on the agenda from those which simply don't care whether you remain loyal or not.

I would imagine (?) that if Emirates had addressed your concerns in a more professional and honourable manner, then you might not have started looking at other options at all. The perfect example of how to lose a valuable customer

pomkiwi

I think that is quite likely - at least for our next flight where the price difference wasn't that large. To be honest though if EK are charging between Ł1k and Ł2k more than BA to get to Sydney in F it wouldn't matter how well they'd responded to me I have been surprised how much EK fares in F have increased recently, clearly doing well enough that my business won't be missed!

Thanks for the kind words earlier in your post.

m3red

Agree the fares are all Ł5k not Ł3.3/4 that I snagged last year.

Antdenatale

So recently done a return flight from DXB to BKK...out on EK370 and back on EK373,

Have to say the service on both flights was the worst I have ever experienced with Emirates, EK370 is a 2 class 777 service and I always book 6K which is that little mini cabin at the back of business. As there was only me sat in this section I realized that may cause some issues and it certainly did, I was forgotten about for most of the flight when it came to dinner and drinks and had to call over the crew several times to remind them I was there.

Coming back in F on EK373 was even worse, there were 12 F passengers in the cabin and service was the slowest I have ever seen, took them over 45 minutes from take off to come and offer a drink, it was so bad I had to speak to the purser and tell her how unhappy I was with the service, this is something I would never normally dream of doing.

I have noticed over the past few months that standards are starting to slip now in the premium cabins, where Emirates was once known for its excellent service, I think it can only best be described as average now in my experience.

subject2load

Interesting reflections there Antdenatale.

When I look back over the many years (dating back to 1986, albeit with a number of gaps during that period), that I have flown Emirates, my overall perspective of them remains that of a quality operator. My proportion of good (and often VERY good, it must be said) experiences in F - and sometimes J - cabins vs. poor experiences remains heavily skewed - in a favourable way.

It is a virtual given that, whenever a negative report such as your own appears here on the Forum, another will appear within hours/days painting a totally opposite picture. And both will be 'correct'.

And therein lies the current problem in a nutshell. EK are no longer maintaining the consistency that was their hallmark in years past. When you book a premium cabin today, you can never be totally confident that the standard of service onboard (not to mention on the ground ....) will be as you would want & expect.

My own view is that recruitment is the key issue. Either EK are no longer demanding the same standards as they once did ; and/or performance monitoring & assessment is itself not up to the necessary rigorous level.

With the development of other carriers - notably EY and QR - which of course weren't even around for a big chunk of EK's existence - there is more & more demand for quality personnel. Perhaps the talent pool is being gradually drained ....??

Others may have a completely different analysis of course.

ioto1902

Increasing number of A/C, and particularly A388,
High turnover,
Staff from various culture with different level of understanding concerning "service",
Recruits not really motivated by serving Emirates,
all these makes maintaining a consistent high level very difficult.

Nevertheless, they should at least maintain strict standards in F.

eternaltransit

I'm not sure whether it's recruitment in isolation that's caused EKs service standards to become more variable recently, but a combination of factors, mostly due to their rapid expansion - specifically massive fleet expansion - and the rapid expansion of their competitors.

Being cabin crew is still a highly glamorous job, with thousands of applicants for each position. I was just in a city which had a recruitment day with over a thousand applicants - in the end, speaking to recruitment, they only took about 5-10. The recruitment staff are still pretty good in being able to pick out good candidates, but unfortunately once they get dragged into "the system" I think burnout ensues with poor remedies by the organisation.

You've had lots of fleet expansion, with not just new aircraft but also size up-gauge, which close to doubles your crew requirements per aircraft. Add in the expansion of ULH routes and you have another order of magnitude jump in manpower requirements to take into account minimum rest and rostering.

Now, it takes 3 months of relatively intensive training, as well as probational periods to get new staff up to speed. However, a resignation means you're short of staff after only a couple of weeks in some cases. That places obvious stress (read: working hours) on existing staff, who see a material impact in their working lives - colleagues also additionally tired and stressed, crew managers tired and stressed with more staff to manage who are all performing poorly.

Before, EK was a relatively nice and chilled place to work, by all accounts, but then you have this massive expansion and recruitment drive. Apart from the obvious, this also means, and I think this is the most critical part, an expansion of managerial ranks. However, as all of us will know, being a good manager is much harder than being a poor manager - but that seems to have no bearing on their job security!

So now you have more poor managers in charge of overworked and stressed staff. Managers have stress from above to keep the ship steady, whilst upper management (with new hires there too, to keep up with all this rapid expansion) is oblivious to increasing turnover rates.

What do poor managers do of course, when out of their depth? It seems that they pick up a management-by-numbers and a dictatorial approach popular in the region and take out their own frustrations on their direct reports. Unfortunately for them, cabin crew jobs are appearing at quite a rapid pace, not just in the region but all around the world. They have saved money from their tax-free, no expenses jobs over the last few years, and so call EK on their bluff ("if you don't like it, you can leave" - leaving became a much better proposition) and find another job. After all, working for EK is a pretty good thing on your CV!

This pretty much continued until the last year or so, when the big boss (the Sheikh) is shocked to find out that his staff are unhappy and people are leaving - and orders his top team to sort it out. But once again, the damage of good people already having left has been done, and it will take time for new good people to move through the organisation and workplace morale to improve.

In short: rapid expansion and poor management practices, rather than "recruitment" and multiculturalism, imho. I don't buy the service argument, because even though it's true that different cultures have different conceptions of service in general, the EK recruitment process is very good at filtering out the people who work well with EKs passengers and its reinforced constantly.

Still, it's no excuse from a passenger's point of view - internal problems are internal problems and life is too short for a pax to have to care about them. Pax have service expectations, mostly reasonable ones, and it's up to the airline to deliver it.