Flew EK for the first time last week. In Y. SYD-DXB-LHR. I think the reason I was underwhelmed was the disconnect between their advertising and the reality. SYD-DXB was like a LCC in terms of meals. Hard product was .... ok. I guess. Crew was around if needed. Those two aspects are better than QF or NZ, but that's not exactly a high bar.

What *was* interesting was their attempt to kill the person I was travellling with and the cavalier atttude of the crew towards it.

Person I was with ordered diabetic meals. What showed up was labelled diabetic, but was just a normal meal with a few vegan things thrown in. The rice and potatoes were amusing to see, but the date-fruit based snack bar with enough sugar by itself to put them into a coma was less amusing. Crew didn't seem to understand. Can certainly give that a pass. Whomever designed & approved the meals has zero excuse IMO. The fact they were just crappy quality meals as well didn't really help. The crew did make an effort to come up with something else, so that was nice.

The thing that struck me was that Y seemed to be run like an upmarket-ish LCC. while PE and above seemed to be run as an actual full service airline.

One data point, obviously, but I'm not inclined to ever try EK again. I'll try and stick to CX and JL which I've always liked. Trying EVA in a few months, so that will be interesting.