Given that the only complaint of anything that affected you seems to be

slow to collect trays and
poor response to a call button

and that you didn't try to get it resolved at the time, that they treated it as seriously as it deserved.

It has been a year since the event; if another airline is better , then cool. That SQ has a non stop service makes it a logical choice for a journey to Singapore

Not to get off-topic, but I have flown American Airlines quite a bit, and sometimes even in economy, and it has never been like a 3rd world bus, and I certainly have never seen any non-human livestock.

Why bother replying to the thread when it's obvious you haven't bothered to read the post properly or have some kind of sworn allegiance to Emirates.

There have been some good responses here but yours isn't one of them.

I would point out that in the OP, I said I asked a passing FA if I could get some water.

She was the one who claimed that drinks would be served to all passengers before takeoff.

Not EVEN close to being the worst flight ever!!!

I have read it and things that have actually affected you seem to be narrowed down to 2 things plus expectations that were out of alignment with what is offered

Valid point. However EK makes it's bucks from the Y cabin. It's common on many routes to see a J cabin stuffed with opups ( implying that they are not able to sell these J seats but oversell Y ) on many routes. J cabins are not very big, on all acft, compared to BA CX LH. Etc.

And EK is by no means a preferred premium airline. They dont even operate a 4 class cabin, so they have to work extra hard to retain high fare bucket Y pax. I only ever fly J and EK, if not A380, is not my preferred choice with their middle seats, zoo like lounge and whatnot.

F is a vanity cabin on all airlines, peripheral to the revenue model, with EK able to sell F slightly better than others because the Gulf is ( with Brazil and China ) a relatively strong F market. It's certainly not core to their business model.


So if they are taking Y pax for granted it's not a good thing. It's not a good thing for any airline but particularly for EK.

In Economy, this is normal, all around the world.

In Economy. Yeah right.

That is Emirates normal service on routes to/from the Indian sub-continent.

It's a shame that PG Monkey didn't have a fabulous flight, and by his / her admission he / she is not a frequent flyer, so it's all a matter of context as for the majority of us this is miles away from a terrible Y experience.

Emirates for me pioneered the feed 'em and entertain the masses to keep them quiet and happy. Back in the days it was them (and oddly Kuwait Airlines) that had seat back TV's - a novel idea in Y. But now everyone does that, many airlines feed you well in Y, so it comes down to crew (and seat pitch!) and a couple of personal things that make the difference for a flight. Emirates have always been above average for me crew wise.

But - for comparisons sake in October I took my first Qatar flights - 6 of them - 5 were brilliantly staffed, but 1 (KUL-DOH) had a similar crew with similar failures that just fell down massively - staff got stressed, 200 odd people ended up sticking their meal trays in the kitchen (inevitably leading to piles of them falling over, blocking toilets), call bells not being answered, well it all just spiralled out of control. But I knew that was the exception - and I could see it walking on the plane as the crew were massively arrogant and borderline rude (i'm the most pleasant person to be on your plane, i've never pressed a call bell in any class - much nicer to go for a stroll and a chat ).

If i'd have taken that flight in isolation i'd never touch Qatar Airlines again. Same for any airlines. So hopefully what PG Monkey takes from the responses is the vast majority of EK Y flights are better than this, so I hope he takes another just for comparisions sake. On average, it should be far better! It's not about 'apologists' - I can't stand that term in an airline context, but the reality is his / her experience didn't reflect the experiences of those massive more well travelled on Emirates.

And with no disrespect to BHX, I wonder if EK has 'poorer' sectors that staff don't like serving. I know EVA Air staff can't stand doing the BKK-LHR sector. I wonder if the idea of a couple of days down time in BHX for what I imagine is a demanding SEA Beaches Party & ISC crowd is not their idea of a great flight (i'm putting this out there as supposition, not fact!).

Excellent post. Spot on.

But I have no patience with CC providing differential service on different sectors. It where professional behaviour must be enforced. It's managements job to make sure that this does not happen by cracking down heavily n CCs that cannot cope with perceived or real " difficult" sectors. BA used to have this problem and it's quite remarkable, the turnaround they have effected on this front.

Sometimes there are structural reasons, eg TG crew are much better on "out and back" regional routes, as their new hires are better than old hires who fly the intercon / night stop routes because of seniority. But this too is within the capacity of management to address and they should. It's what they are paid to do.

I've quoted the above from the other thread... this really does read as if you are a frequent EK flyer, and not just based on a single flight, over a year ago.

Just as a point of interest... how many EK Y flights have you taken in total, and how many QR Y (who you were comparing EK with)?

I would say me too (some on here will disagree), but I'll only get up a couple of times max if I'm not in an aisle seat so I don't irritate whoever is in the aisle seat. If I'm in an aisle seat I'll go get things myself unless the seat belt light is on. We have a family friend (she died a few years ago) who developed DVT on a flight and was never able to fly again and had other complications arise. I think it tend to make you more aware of these things as a result. I'd never drink alcohol on a flight, for example, (despite EK's open bar policy) due to the dehydrating effect.

For me the important things on a flight are drinking water and keeping on the move. Doesn't help that security still won't allow water bottles, because being able to take one with you (or buy one that isn't ridiculously priced in the airport) would probably mean I'd never need to bother cabin crew.

Absolutely agree with this. I know some are critical of my post and some responses have made me realise the title "worst flight ever" is probably over the top but that should tell you how highly I regarded Emirates. For me they were the gold standard until I experienced this flight and it was effectively endorsed by a poor response from customer relations who effectively dismissed my complaint as nonsense.

I've made two return journeys with EK Y (6 individual flights) and one return with QR Y (4 individual flights). I see what you're getting at and it's a valid point.

OK thanks. To take it one step further, was the flight you are referring to in the OP the only bad one out of 6?

My point is that you can have a bad flight with any airline. If it's consistently bad, then you have a big right to complain, but the issues you raised were pretty minor IMO - and hopefully just a one off.

Thinking back over my flight history, I can only recall one really bad flight. That was on BA in F class - and boy did I rant on the BA forum

PS... Don't some (all?) EK planes have water dispensers near the toilets? So, if you take a bottle on board, you can fill at your leisure.

I tend to take alcohol rather the water