Some of you might know that I have just signed up to a job which means I have to travel to Singapore every couple of weeks. After looking at the prices of the direct flights I thought I would try Emirates via Dubai in J Class, £1200 cheaper than SQ direct.

I booked EK4 from LHR to DXB then EK404 from DXB to LHR, A380 the B777. I was really looking forward to it, I had been looking at all the trip reports and even out a threat on here asking for tips! It all started off well but soon went downhill.

The car picked me up early as I wanted to get to the LHR lounge and enjoy it, which I did. Nice food and a great place to look over the departure runway – it was looking good. The A380 arrived, A6-EDF, and we were soon boarding by the direct gate. I was greeted on board and i made my way to my seat. I unpacked a few things and sat down. This is where things went downhill. My IFE was blank and I was trying to get the attention of the crew but they said they would come back me. They seemed to be greeting passengers personally; i assume they were Gold Card holders as they didn’t greet me. They spent about 10 minutes explaining to the guy behind how there was a bar at the back, and where the toilets were, even though he said he had flown the sector several times, perhaps it would be a better idea to explain it to someone who has never flown on the A380?

Anyway the screen came on and started working on its own, but not perfectly. The little wireless control wouldn’t work at all so if I needed to change the channel I had to get up and move forward to press the screen as the wired control didn’t work either. It was also really dirty, not fresh like spills, but just ingrained dirt like you get on the back of a door when people with dirty hands close it. Food came around which was ok but not great but I waited about 30 minutes between starter and main and, I kid you not, 1hr for my main to be cleared away. I just couldn’t get the attention of the crew, they all seemed to be rushing about and I couldn’t use my call bell as the controllers were dead. So not impressed.

We arrived in Dubai, 40 minutes late, and I made my way to the lounge to have a shower. I tried all of the showers available but all had a large queue. It was only because a couple of guys I was speaking to asked if I wanted to jump the queue I managed to get a shower before my next flight. I grabbed a quick drink and ran to the next gate. On arrival I went straight aboard and found my seat. It was ok and I had an orange juice and the stewardess said that my seat was broken but an engineer was coming to take a look, I kid you not!!!!!!

So I waited and waited and the engineer didn’t come, I didn’t know what was wrong with it so I assumed it was the IFE or something. Anyway the doors were closed and we pushed back. I was concerned that the seat hadn't been fixed so I had a closer look about and found the problem. The door to the compartment which has the life jacket in had come adrift and was stopping the seat from moving. So I fixed it myself, it was easy (I’m an aircraft engineer, but not on B777). Other than that the flight was good, the crew better than the LHR/DXB sector but it was still nothing special.

I was a little disappointed with the whole service, I am not sure what I expected but I was just disappointed with the broken seats, the cleanliness of the cabin and seats on the A380, the lounge in Dubai which was really packed and too busy and the second broken seat on the B777. I noticed that EK were offering F Class tickets from LGW at a reasonable cost and I was going to take my next flight from London, on the 27th, in F but I am really having second thoughts on the whole EK thing now.

I’m writing this in Singapore so I still have my return legs to do, so they might redeem themselves but I wanted to ask you all, am I being picky or is this out of character for EK?