A Christmas Bargain to Oman on Emirates and Swiss
Peak seasons such as Christmas, Easter, and Chinese New Year are a head-ache. Despite a trade war and ongoing pro-democracy protests, Hong Kongers' desire to travel remains strong. As usual, the typical regional destinations become super expensive and not worth the big premium.
So I was very surprised when my persistent internet scan found a super cheap deal to Dubai on Emirates 2 weeks before Christmas. Emirates flies 3x a day to Dubai, which includes multiple A380 flights. Perhaps they had a lot of seats to fill, so they need to discount heavily? At HKD $2950, it was cheaper than going to Japan, even though the flight time is more than double.
However, I've extensively covered Dubai before, so I set my eyes on another exotic destination within close range, Oman. The search engine also came up with an interesting option for Dubai - Muscat, Swiss. Not sure why this routing came up, I searched the airport and airline websites and noticed this interesting 5th freedom that I had never thought of before. The other alternatives, Emirates, Oman Air, or a low-cost carrier were all more expensive. With late evening departures for both the outbound and inbound as well as free checked luggage, the HKD $1400 ticket was a bargain and fitted right into my driving itinerary.
Emirates has started to toggle with additional revenue-earning methods. For such a deeply-discounted Economy fare, seat selection was not included and had to be additionally charged. So I had to patiently wait for OLCI to open to select a good seat on the A380. The whole seat map was full by then and I was pre-allocated an aisle seat.
EK 383 Hong Kong - Dubai
The long route west through Dubai gets quite painful and takes almost the same time as getting to Australia from HK. However, the flight deck announced a surprisingly short 8.5 hour air-time tonight against the headwind.
Here in a full cattle class, you will see a major difference between Emirates' flight attendants and the Asian carriers. They don't come around to do a safety check before take-off, and didn't do the same for landing as well. Many didn't speak English as a first language.
Shortly after take-off, dinner was served. While the metal cutlery was still provided, their catering has seen cutbacks in recent years. Nevertheless, there is also a second smaller meal to look forward to before landing.
Luckily, the flight was fairly smooth all the way to Dubai, even over India where it is typically a bit more bumpy.
One thing that remained excellent and consistent was the entertainment system, which still offered an extensive selection of content. They were working hard to promote Expo 2020 in Dubai as well. To celebrate the festive season, they even had a Christmas entertainment page on their ICE.
As we descended into Dubai, helpful information came on the monitor, including the arrival gate, and theoretically the baggage belt as well. After landing, there was even a feedback screen.
I've always had a bad impression of Dubai's airport. Tonight, things didn't improve remarkably. Shy of midnight local time, it was already sleeping hour in Hong Kong time, and the walk to immigration took forever. The arrivals walkways were elevated and gave a good view of the departures area and duty-free shops though.
Next part : Free 2 nights' hotel thanks to Emirates.
More on my website : https://www.globalphotos.org/fly-oman1.htm