DUB-IAD in J (EI117) - Observations

Up front disclosure - I haven’t flown EI in about 15 years. I used to fly them a lot when I lived in Dublin, and while they were in oneworld. Obviously a lot has changed since then. Over those 15 or so years, I have visited Ireland at least twice each year, almost always flying on American, or on BA via LHR. I was hoping the EI experience would surpass either or both of those airlines, but I didn’t find that to be the case. The experience was on a par with BA, at best, and somewhat worse than the experience on AA.

My main observations:

Pre-Flight
- The app is just terrible. Can’t switch seats, minimal information about the flight, airport, inflight experience. Requiring Verifly is totally unnecessary at this stage of the (former?) pandemic. It adds unnecessary complexity. I had to make several attempts to get the EI app to acknowledge that I’d completed the Verifly process.
- The Business Class check-in at DUB was understaffed and the queue was past the partitions that separate the biz check-in from the other lines. I gave up and went to a self-check machine.
- On the plus side, there was a cute set-up for the Irish Oscar nominees. Red carpet, “movie theatre” sign, stanchions, etc. A nice touch and a bit of fun!

Lounge
- The 51st & Green lounge was underwhelming. Busy, limited food selection, small and inadequate bathroom facilities. The barista was super nice, and very competent, but for whatever reason, the lounge only had sugar-free syrup, so the vanilla latte I ordered was nasty.
- Why, oh why, are there no US power outlets? I get that there are USB ports, but they are the old style USBs, rather than the newer USB C outlets. I couldn’t charge my phone.

Onboard
- I was seated in the bulkhead row, left-hand window seat, 2A
- The flight departure was delayed about 30 minutes due to a paperwork issue. That, plus the overhead panel above my seat was open, revealing the oxygen generator associated with the emergency masks. They had to call maintenance, who showed up quickly, brandishing what looked like a pizza cutting roller blade. They fixed it quickly.
- Even with the delay, no pre-departure beverages were offered. The crew just stood in the galley, yucking it up. That annoyed me. It isn’t that much to ask to offer a bevvy to, what, 14 people?
- The amenity kit is grim. More like a premium economy kit, as opposed to business class.
- The storage at this seat is bloody awful. There’s no room for anything within arms’ reach of the actual seat. The storage compartment under the footwell is fine for a pair of shoes, but not much else (nor is it obvious to a ‘newbie” that there’s even a storage compartment down there). Forget having your laptop bag near you during flight.
- The lack of direct aisle access is an obvious negative for this seat and the J cabin on the A321 in general, so I won’t beat that dead horse.
- I was surprised that there was no “welcome on board”, no hot towel service, and that the menus were just bunged into the literature pouches. (Yes, I know, but it’s the little things….)
- The first drinks service was fine - two Geese and the cookies with jam went down nicely.
- I ordered the beef for my main. It looked awful, once delivered, but tasted better than appearances suggested it would. Overall, the portions were modest, and the service was indifferent.
- Having knocked back the two minis of Gray Goose, I wasn’t offered any wine or water (or anything else) with my meal. I ended up breaking into the bottle of Ballygowan that was at the seat before I boarded. Really poor show.
- After the meal, the crew disappeared for the next several hours. The only sign of their presence was the occasional laughter from the galley area. A dirty napkin (not mine) was left on the bulkhead for hours on end. The lights were not dimmed.
- I didn’t use the IFE, preferring to watch stuff on my iPad. Can’t comment on the headphones. The selection of programming looked limited, and there was nothing i wanted to watch.
- The inflight map was the only thing I called up on the screen. It was annoying that it disappeared after several minutes without some form of interaction.
- The second meal was a joke. Apart from the graceless ask “Do you want the afternoon tea”, the meal itself was meagre. Chicken slider? Give me a break. It was like a single, small chicken nugget on a mini burger bun. Absolutely laughable. Only tea or coffee were offered with this meal. The pastries were good, but the overall impression of the meals was just disappointing, at very best.
- The seat comfort was middling, at best. It’s quite hard and there’s nothing to remedy that. The massage function on my seat didn’t work. I found the position of the controls to be sub-optimal for use, especially when trying to get it in or out of the lie-flat mode.

Don’t get me wrong - I wanted to really like the EI experience. I was excited to see them come to Cleveland (about 90 minutes’ drive from me) later this year. I have very fond childhood memories of the 747 service to Tenerife, Boston and NY. As I mentioned at the start of the review, it’s been a minute since I flew EI. The intervening years haven’t been good to their J service. Bring back the pre-dinner canapés, the Waterford crystal and the Blarney woollen mills blankets

Nice review. I'll add my thoughts given I did this exact RT in the seat across from you over Christmas.

Pre-Flight
Totally agree with everything here.

Lounge
51&G is undersized for the traffic it gets right now. The bar situation needs to be addressed, the barista thing is nice, but there should be a seperate self serve station somewhere - even the EI/DAA lounges have this.

I think the food is fine, a shade below what you'd get in AA Flagship/BA Galleries. They definitely need a sandwich option. And to rotate the curry out.

The US power outlets are different voltage to EU ones so I'm pretty sure they couldn't wire for them, in addition to EU requirements around safety (EU plugs are much, much safer than US ones).

Onboard
EI don't do PDBs as you (and indeed myself) would be accustomed to on AA. I'm not sure why this is the case, seems like it'd be easy enough given the time on the ground.

Agreed that the amenity kit is awful, the Voya products themselves though are quite good.

The crews are fine by and large I've found, but definitely not proactive - gotta hit that call button for top ups.

Totally agree with the catering though, it should be easy enough to get right but its mediocre at best.

I think ultimately you're memory of EI is of a different era. They're what I'd term a premium budget carrier now, and tbf for a couple of dates I checked for IAD-DUB they're about $700 cheaper than Polaris on UA ($3.8k vs $4.5k). If you can originate in DUB you can get a J RT for ~$2200 which is very good value. I'm far from an EI apologist, as my posts in here will attest, but I don't think you can compare them to the likes of AA Flagship Business. At least they let you pick your seat for free unlike BA, and the food is definitely better than the absolute garbage UA dish out in Polaris.

Edit: a couple of additional pros/cons having marinated on this some more:

Pros
(1) Free Wifi. I don't think any of the US3 offer that.

(2) If you can get the throne seats, they're a really nice & private way to go transatlantic. Arguably one of the best.

Cons
(1) Ground handling outside of Dublin (and indeed sometimes in DUB itself) is absolutely abysmal. Be prepared to wait 1hr+ for your bags at the other end, and this is a first world problem, but it ticks me off when priority tagged bags don't come out first.

(2) They need to reopen the arrivals lounge in DUB

(3) If something goes wrong, EI customer service is horrendous - they're also really poor on social media (Twitter) which is in stark contrast to AA for example who can pretty much solve anything for you via a couple of tweets.

I think EI could easily enough have the best value J product across the Atlantic if they paid attention to the details.

Just to contrast to AA...

DUB's queue has been a mess all year. I don't believe that's either AA or EI's fault.

Isn't the 51st & Green lounge shared by all post-preclearance flights, including AA as well as EI?

AA PDBs are *very* hit and miss domestically. Internationally, even on what's supposed to be a flagship route like SYD-LAX, I've seen them hand out a tray with water, orange juice, and (middling) champagne as opposed to taking actual drink orders. YMMV, of course.

AA food is famously, remarkably bad, even in J.

Service is very inconsistent on AA in J internationally, as is the case for most airlines. I've flown JFK-LHR flights where I wanted to start a company and hire the FAs because they were so wonderful. I just flew SYD-LAX with a purser who wanted to be anywhere else on the planet earth or to at least make it through the flight by saying as few words as possible by repeating the same phrase to every person she had to talk to. "Pajamas? Pajamas?" "Dessert? Dessert? Dessert?"

I prefer the AA seat to EI's, and not having access to the aisle in 2023 is brutal. Having flown PHL-DUB last year and flying AA across the pond pretty often, I think AA is better, but I don't believe the difference isn't as stark as it might seem.

If you travelled the day the Oscars party were going out that’s likely why the business class desk was very busy.

The US still requires Covid certs. Hence Verifly. Ridiculous yes. But not exactly under EI’s control.

I’ve never seen European charging outlets in the US. Can’t imagine why we’d have the reverse here.

Mostly I find the food and drink offerings are good. Although staff do tend to disappear once it’s served.

Overall I think your criticism is harsh. As noted EI is now a premium budget carrier. Not all bells and whistles but very good value.

I’ve taken two J flights in the states. One United, one AA. Neither approached EI’s offering and were not, imho, good value. The United in particular was shocking.

EI do reasonably well I think.

I recently flew DUB-EWR on the 321neo and ORD-DUB on the 333, both in J. I wouldn't disagree with most of the observations by the OP and others here, but I do agree that it's a matter of expectations - both expectations of EI and expectations of the time we live in and what J cabins can/cannot be.

I'll flip this around and list what I did like:

1. I found the seat comfortable and was easily able to sleep. The key here is to get one of the four single seats on the 321neo.
2. The meal portions looked "modest" when delivered but I found them to be "just right." While it wasn't a 5* dining experience, the meals I had were way better than some of the slop that's been peddled in J by other carriers. (I'm looking at you KL)
3. The selection on the AVOD was good for me. I especially liked that there were Irish movies. The two that I watched were excellent, even if I had to watch with subtitles.

Would I fly EI again in J? Probably, although as a SkyTeam elite, it would only be when it was the best option available.

PS - the earnings for my flights (credited to UA) were abysmal.

We flew them last Christmas '21, highlight was the drinks biscuits... which we found we could get delivered to the house ;-)
Service on way to Dublin was great, but the return leg wasn't much, and the food was terrible - the Chicken on both the outward bound and return flights was inedible, burnt and dry.

No mention of the free Wi-Fi, EI is provides free Wi-Fi in business and to top tier status holders. Most if not all airlines charge a fortune.

The food in business is pretty good, especially originating from Dublin, wine choice can be a little bit strange. The crews can vary from being incredible to adequate. Thanks to covid the welcome drink and hot towel services have gone away, its not practical on the A321.

The seat is really good, compared to BA's offering and some of the US carriers who send out domestic config aircraft it was a revelation when it launched.

The 51st and Green isn't bad but it could be a lot better, no really warm food offering, no real privacy but thats what a typical business class lounge is like.

Most of all the price, compared to other carriers EI is consistently cheaper

My j class experience last week was all positive.The crew were amazing, very attentive little things like replacing empty water bottle with a couple of new bottles while napping.They were even good for a few restaurant recommendations (which were all excellent

They do retreat to galley after meal service and dim cabin lights but every so often they will do a walk through to check on waking passengers.

I thought the food was good the portion sizes were fine by me

Pre flight drinks and hot towels were offered.

Lots to watch on in flight entertainment.

Sorry to read OP's account; I've never had a bad crew or a good meal on EI. Catering down the back is truly awful. But I tell myself preclearance @ DUB is worth bad food.

I mean for the most part airline meals are always going to be middling.

If you get something that resembles an Applebees on board I consider that a win, its all pre-cooked and heated up by Chef Mic & plated with(out) care by the FAs. I think there's a skill to getting in flight appropriate concepts that are easy to get right, but there are definitely a few misses with the EI menu that clearly haven't been tested in a production environment (to borrow a phrase from my consulting day job).

US style sockets would be illegal under Irish electrical standards, if you just ask at reception of the lounge they no doubt will have an adapter on hand.

That would mean all dual voltage shaver sockets would now be banned in Ireland, but you'll find them in most hotels.

But you don't have an adapter for Irish/UK plugs? Or you have one, but didn't have it with you at in the lounge?

There is a world of difference (electrically speaking) between a US socket outlet and a shaver socket.Shaver outlets are fed via small isolating transformers with very limited current output at either voltage and as such, are electrically seperate from the rest of the electrical installation within the property.