EK is notorious for advertising new aircraft for a particular flight on their website, and then switching to an old, uncomfortable aircraft. This has happened to me several times this year, including one downgrade from a FC suite, despite being booked in 'Suite Class''. The latest example was last night on a flight from Colombo to Dubai - it was advertised as a sky cruiser seat, which is why I booked it - the only way you have a chance of catching any sleep on the 6 hour flight. Low and behold, they probably sold more FC tickets from Male to Dubai than they had space for, so they instead substituted with the ancient 777-300 (which has 50% more seats in FC in the same space).

In this day and age, those seats would be embarassing for an airline in biz class on an overnight flight. They are downright ridiculous when sold as first class!!

What make me the most angry, though, is that every time I've complained, I usually get the "we reserve the right to change planes for operational reasons" answer. No apology, no compensation, no nothing. Can't they understand that if I pay money to fly on a flat-bed seat, it is completely inappropriate to force-downgrade me to a seat that is sub-business class? It's just not OK. At a minimum, I would expect an automatic apology and an upgrade on a future flight.

Has anyone else had bait-and-switch experience with old aircraft?