One man's junk is another man's treasure...

I have always had relatively good service traveling in F on EK. But, I am not that picky. It is quite possible the nuances that are a very big deal to some, and define the service of their flight, completely miss my radar.

Then again... on the 15 hour USA<->DXB flights I am on, I usually sleep for 8-10 hours, so I am probably missing a lot of interaction with the crew, which is fine by me.

The ability to lock myself in a closet and be left alone for hours on end is my version of flying nirvana.

In terms of training, I find that in many fields there is a similar question. Does a good end-product mean the beginning product was good, or that the training was good? (product=human being)

Of course you can have good flight attendants are a horrible airline, but the idea is that good training reduces variability.

I tend to agree with Whimike as I sleep much of the way from the west coast of the US to the Middle East. However, I do like to have a few cocktails, eat dinner and watch a bit of whats on offer as far as video is concerned before sleeping and then breakfast prior to landing (I typically take early evening flights from LAX/SFO/SEA that arrive a number of hours later, depending upon transit point). EK F is excellent, don't take me wrong, but the hard product is what wins me over. I don't find the 380s claustrophobic at all at all - do I wish that there was more room between the armrest and the sliding doors, probably. One improvement I would suggest for in-flight service is more frequent rounds by attendants with the right bottles of wine in hand - is the lack of that practice (at least on most of my EK flights), not really. I just happen to appreciate staff anticipating what I might want rather than me pressing a button to tell them. There have been exceptions, of course - about 4 months ago I had the pleasure of an American steward (whose mother had flown for American for 25 years) who was superb - friendly (but not too), unobtrusive and anticipated what I might like. When I was done with dinner/drinks and was ready to sleep, he had the bed made up, I closed the doors, and wasn't disturbed for 10 hours, when I woke up for a shower and breakfast.

THIS

Being a full-fare paying F (A-Class ticket) passenger, I think EK's first-class product is exceptional. I am able to pick and chose whichever airline I wish to take, so my choice is based upon who has the best service between the city pairs. The number one factor is seat, second in-flight services and third pre and post-flight experience. But, for me, comfort in the air is the most important thing when flying long-distances (well flying period).

For example, two months ago, Athens to Dubai, no other airline has a lie-flat to the Middle East. There were used drinks in the cubby hole and the gold was discolored and used/worn. The light was duct taped to the wall. I asked for a glass of water three times (since the VOSS in my compartment was used by the previous passenger). The overall experience was sub-par, BUT I was able to stretch out and have privacy. Last month, ORD-DXB-ORD in F, it was as if I was on a different airline all together. The service, food, cabin, staff was what Emirates First should always be about.

If I want to have an exceptional meal I'll go to a fine-restaurant, if I want to plow through bottles of Krug, I'll go buy a case, I carry with me all the amenities I need so the kit doesn't matter. Now, should the meal served in FC be something worthy of first-class, absolutely. From the few million miles under my belt, my expectations about food are not held to the highest standards.

EY might have something to say about that, with their fuly flat J on their A330. Not sure whether it was a recent change.Sounds more than "sub-par" - it sounds like they simply forgot to clean and restock your seat altogether. :eek:

I could be completely off base, but I can't help but think that those more put off by variations in service are those that don't often fly the super-premium cabins.

Let me explain...

The person that has either purchased, or redeemed, a flight in EK F that has had aspirational dreams to do so, they are excited about every thing, no matter how little, related to the experience. They will be more likely to notice even the slightest service shortcomings and be bothered by them. (And, there is nothing wrong with that, they expect things to be perfect, and they should be darn close.)

Let me give 2 different examples to explain this...

When I first stated traveling i signed up for the SPG Platinum challenge to get accelerated Platinum status with SPG. When I first got platinum status I was excited about the suite upgrades and would plan my trips to hotels and get excited about the suites. Right out the gate I was batting less than 25% average on suite upgrades, and I would get upset about the whole process, as I would research the rooms and get all bothered about it since it seems the front-desk staff was lying to me, and in several cases they were caught lying. This whole process ended up tarnishing the start of my trips and I would let it bother me for days.

Now, years later, after spending 100+ nights a year in hotels, I am numb to the suite upgrade. I ask for the upgrade, if they say no, I don't care. I go to my room, which I only plan to sleep in, and I mostly care that it is clean and quiet. No suite upgrade? Pfft... Whatever. Even when I do get suite upgrades I only sleep in the room, and would rarely utilize the living room part of it. I came to realize getting a suite was something that had little overall value to me, but I kept getting worked up over it. Now, I am over it, don't care anymore.

The other example is exotic sports cars. I grew up as a kid, like many others, dreaming about Ferrari's and other cool cars. They were always a dream, when I would see one on the road I would point and oooohhhhh and aaahhhh. Then, at some point, I was able to afford one, and got one. And... It was exhilarating. Then, one day I noticed that it became normal. I no longer fawned over it, nor noticed others that drove by, and was clueless that other people would notice my car. What was once awesome and cool was not still awesome and cool but I no longer got all worked up and excited about it. I got numb to it. The days of exotic ridiculous cars are in my past, though, and I am much more grounded now, but even today when I see an exotic car, I can feel that I no longer have that automatic injection of testosterone in my body that I had before.

We can go on and on with examples, such as super hot girls, etc...

The fact is that we acclimate to things that usually at first we thought new and incredible. For me, that is EK F now. It is an excellent comfortable seat, and a nice closet to lock yourself in. I am now numb to service irregularities. I just don't even notice them. I don't pick apart every little thing, I just don't care anymore. I used to, when I first started flying EK F, but it put me in a bad mood when things didn't go as I expected them. Now, I don't care, and I am never in a bad mood. I enjoy my flights, unhindered.

This, of course, is in no way absolving EK of not trying to make things as perfect as possible, nor implying that airlines should be given a pass for poor service. Far from it. I am just trying to give a perspective to why some may find things perfectly fine while others think they are terrible.

Totally agree with the above.

More or less agree, but there is definitely a difference between things which I consider acceptable as variable, and things which I don't think should happen, full stop.

I tend to be pretty relaxed about most human aspects (within reason), such as the warmth of the service, frequency of refills, whether the FAs do regular rounds, and so on.

Also, very few airlines - if any - could claim to always get food right 100% of the time, not the least because there is less control over outstations. And of course, it's a pretty challenging environment to prepare "gourmet meals", no matter what the brochures say.

But proper cleaning of the seats is something much more basic and I am less inclined to cut them slack for seemingly forgetting to do this altogether as it appears in the recent post.

Absolutely, the half used bottle of Voss is unacceptable, and I would have told the purser so and had them deal with the issue on the spot. But, I think these particular incidents are far and few between.

I tend to think like whimike that exceptional becomes the norm with time.

Nevertheless, when you are paying for FCL, you are entitled to a minimum of quality because that is what FCL is meant for.

As for IFE and food, they are the rare distractions on board, so I expect them to be very good, though technically, food can never be as good as in an earthly restaurant.
The overhaul of EK FCL is good news, as current suite is becoming a little bit outdated. (yes, yes, no need to remind me that I'm hopelessly spoiled)

As far as service is concerned, it all comes to the purser, not nationality.
Both legs of this month trip was excellent. FAs remembered everything I've asked for ; and they provided timely me with everything I needed. The purser was British on both legs (or british speaking ..).

And may I say that hard or soft FCL product is not what really bothers me : it's the more frequent pax bad behavior.
Here's what I had to endure for 7 hours : a French putting his bare feet everywhere and being rude to FAs. Damn, that really ruined my flight. And yes, I had to close the doors but this was not cool for IF service ...
I really regret those old times when FCL pax flew classy ...

https://instagram.com/passengershaming/?ref=badge
(photo posted in May for those interested)

So far EY is using the A321 with those domestic cradle seats....

https://uk.flightaware.com/live/flight/ETD90

Majority has been on A332.

My opinion only of course, but of the 12 individual F flights I've taken, all but one (on a 777) has been excellent. On all but that one, 11 flights on A380 F, the pursor came at least twice to make sure everything was ok. The FAs were all attentive, only twice was my FA "in a bad mood"

The food is much better than AF and TG, not as good as SQ, but its not something i could be overly critical about.

Of course their suites could be wider and need to have better bedding, but the large, a la carte menu, the Dom and Paradis, Bulgari amenities and the shower spa more than makes up for it :)

I suspect will have bothered a fair number of members here by posting the same request on six different threads.

Smells like a spam bot linking to a piece of malware disguised as a Google docs document...

I've done a RBP. Spamming BA and Air Canada forums also.