I got on

I arrived at check-in just as they were closing, and by some miracle there were still three empty seats. I took one of them. Just to remind everyone Y cabin was 22 seats oversold just yesterday.

J was now full, but they kept F completely empty. So not sure what happened behind the scenes (too much Super Bock the night before, perhaps?) but it worked out nicely for me.

Interestingly I spoke to an off-duty EK cabin crew, who was on standby just in front of me, and they mentioned that they never Op-up pax from J-F.

AS FOR THE TRIP REVIEW! this was the first time I've flown EK Economy Class (or any class of travel) for three years.

On boarding, I felt the crew were not particularly welcoming, compared to my experience with other Gulf carriers, and they seemed to be a bit all-over-the-place.

However, I did end up having a short conversation with two of the crew, and found them to be very nice on a 1-to-1 level.

I'm not a fan of the EK uniforms - specifically the male uniform. Seems a bit off-duty office worker to me.

The seat on this 777 was narrow, but acceptable considering the lady next to me was slender and didn't even seem to want the arm rest! I was on the aisle near the front of the cabin.

The food was very good. I think they were possibly rolling out a new meal service, as when I ordered my post-take off G&T, the FA suggested I take a double, as the meal service trolly wouldn't contain any spirits. Good suggestion! Shame there was no lemon slice though.

The white wine was in a glass bottle, which seemed odd in an age of cost cutting and weight reduction.

We rang in new year somewhere over Bahrain - the cabin crew wished us HNY in all of their various spoken languages. A nice touch, but sadly no champagne was passed round.

Landed in DXB around 1.15am, and had a horrible long bus journey back to the terminal.

I won't bore you with the rest. Overall, a good experience on EK! And renewed optimism for travelling stand-by!