Beepbop

I don’t usually write full reviews for flights because there are others who travel more and are better at documenting their experience. However, I thought I’d do so for this particular flight because there aren’t many reviews around for flydubai.

warning: pic-heavy review coming up

INTRODUCTION

flydubai is the budget airline arm of Emirates, and they operate a fleet of 737-800s and the infamous 737 MAX. Emirates uses flydubai to extend their network to destinations which don't have enough capacity to warrant a 777 flight.

BOOKING AND PRICE

I booked this as part of a trip flying F in Emirates. Unfortunately Emirates does not deem Zagreb worthy of serving with their 777s, and flydubai has taken their place with their narrowbody fleet. I would have very much preferred F on an Emirates 777, but that can’t be helped.

Pricing out this segment alone shows kinda poor value for this flight – it would have been EUR2000+ for a 6+ hour flight, which was ~5x the cost of Economy tickets at the time of booking. Given that I booked this flight way in advance, this would have been somewhat acceptable (but high) pricing on a good full-service airline, but not on a budget airline.

Because I had a weird routing, I discovered an interesting consequence of flying F to a destination not served directly by Emirates. My itinerary consisted of the following legs:

(1) Country A to Country B via Dubai on EK F
(2) separate travel from Country B to C
(3) Country C to Dubai on flydubai J
(4) Dubai to Country A on EK F.

I originally tried booking flight legs 1,3 and 4 on Emirates as a multi-city itinerary (A - B, and C - A) in F, but I realized that it was cheaper to book flight legs 1 and 4 as a return flight (A - B - A) on Emirates, and price the flydubai segment (B - C) separately on the flydubai website. I’m not sure if this is because the Emirates system priced the flydubai segment as F based on the rest of my flight legs, or if there was any difference in service level between booking on flydubai as a J passenger, or booking as an F codeshare passenger. The only difference I found was that flydubai F has a baggage allowance of 2 bags up to 40kg, while Emirates F has unlimited bags up to 50kg for F (which might have been the allowance for my flydubai leg if I had booked it as a single itinerary).


PRE-FLIGHT EXPERIENCE

This is where flydubai’s budget status really shows. On Emirates, I could view the in-flight menu and wine list before my flight. Flydubai’s website simply mentions that food and beverages are provided, and there are no options for viewing the menu.

Flydubai also offers a rather confusing range of hard products for J, only one of which is lie-flat.

For shorter flights, they seem to have rolled out high-density HAECO recliner seats in a 2-2 configuration:


HAECO recliner seats - adequate for short hops

Longer flights use either a Thompson-style staggered seating on their 737 MAXes in a 2-2/1-1 configuration, or the vastly inferior recliner seats on their 737-800s in a 2-2 configuration:


Thompson-style lie-flat seating


Older recliner seats for longer trips - these would have been industry-leading in 1990

My flight segment is usually served by the 737 MAX with the Thompson-style lie-flat seats. However, I’ve heard stories of last-minute equipment swaps, so I was a little apprehensive about it. Seat selection on the flydubai site showed the lie-flat seating arrangement, but I couldn’t verify this on expertflyer or seatguru.

AIRPORT CHECK-IN

As a budget airline, flydubai didn’t have many counters open at Zagreb airport. 2.5 hours before scheduled departure, the staff arrived to open 1 Business class counter and 1 Economy counter (they later announced that a second Economy counter would be open after some time). The TV screens only showed one counter open for Business, leading to some confusion over where to stand for a few minutes until the staff started explaining that the Economy counter was still booting up.


The confusion at the check-in counters 2.5 hours before departure. There was a disease going around which caused everyone to be afflicted with black circles over their faces.

Since the flight has 10 J pax, there wasn’t much of a line for the Business check-in. There was no dedicated premium line for security screening and immigration, but Zagreb airport was sufficiently small that it wasn’t an issue.

LOUNGE

Flydubai doesn’t have its own Business lounge (no surprises there), but uses the Primeclass lounge. It’s the only lounge in the Zagreb airport, so it also serves (presumably) every other airline along with Priority pass holders.


The Primeclass lounge – the entire dining area is shown on the right. On the left (behind the check-in counter) was another area, slightly smaller than the dining area, with a business center, massage chairs and seating. The “black circle” disease has afflicted more poor souls in the lounge.

The lounge was… underwhelming. It was pretty small, so there weren’t many seating options. I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking here, but the food options mainly consisted of salads, pastries, sandwiches and cakes. The only hot food options were pancakes from an automatic machine (not pictured), and some cream-based soup. The liquor selection was middling at best – you can see for yourself in the picture below, but these are mostly liquors which would be served on a good Economy flight, along with a few Croatian spirits and white, red and rose wines. Even the Croatian spirits/wines were the cheap supermarket variety, nothing special about them.


The, uh, gourmet spread. Nothing says fine dining like salad in a cup with pre-packaged salad dressing.


The pastry section. Having just spent time in the region, I understood that the sinister-sounding “pastry with cheese” and “pastry with meat” was a regional specialty called burek, and not leftover pizza ingredients.


Dessert and fruits section, which was pretty well-stocked considering the rest of the food options.


Liquor selection, which looks like the kitchen shelf of a post-grad student - decent quantity, below-average (but not bottom-shelf) quality.

There were 2 massage chairs and a “business center” consisting of a table with two computers, which was adequate for a lounge of this size. The lounge wifi cut out on me multiple times, and I eventually used the Zagreb Airport free wifi, which proved more reliable.

I would have been disappointed if I had “spent” one of my limited Priority Pass swipes on this lounge, which says a lot about it. But as the only lounge option available, I guess the Primeclass lounge is unquestionably the best lounge in Zagreb airport

BOARDING

flydubai’s Zagreb service consists of a Dubai-Zagreb flight which is scheduled to land at 1.40pm, and then a Zagreb-Dubai flight scheduled to take off at 2.40pm. This is pretty par for the course for budget airlines, and that also means that the Zagreb-Dubai flight is very prone to delays (flight history shows that majority of Dubai-Zagreb arrivals are late). On the day of my departure, the Dubai-Zagreb flight arrived late as usual. Even past the official boarding time, the plane had not yet arrived at the gate, with no announcement and no flydubai staff in sight. I checked flightaware, realized that there was probably going to be a significant wait, and went for a bit of a walk (not that the airport was particularly big or interesting). The previous flight eventually landed ~45 minutes late, and the pilots/cabin crew only boarded the plane at the scheduled departure time of 2.40pm.

Business boarded first, but we were stuck on the airbridge because there was a barrier placed halfway down the airbridge. We waited for a few minutes, then one of the passengers yelled across the airbridge to the staff in Croatian, got a reply, and then pushed the barrier aside and beckoned all of us to walk down the remainder of the airbridge with him. I guess airport crew missed a step somewhere.

PRE-DEPARTURE

My first feeling upon boarding the plane was relief – after the middling experience I just had in the lounge and at boarding, I was relieved to see that there was no equipment swap, and the Business seats were the Thompson lie-flat seating rather than high-density recliners.

After I boarded, the purser came to offer me slippers, pajamas, a branded amenity kit and a pre-departure Dom Perignon- oh, sorry, wrong flight. On this flight, I was offered a pre-departure drink, but it was only a choice of water, apple juice or orange juice. At least it was served out of a proper glass.


Proper glass for pre-departure beverage, but no wine/champagne options

Face masks were supposed to be mandatory on the flight. This was announced at the gate, and masks were given out upon boarding. However this was not enforced afterwards. I see this as a positive point - cabin air is 100% refreshed every few minutes after takeoff as air is constantly pumped in from outside, so I'm happy not wearing a mask.

Even though there were only 10 Business seats, I was not referred to by name at any point throughout the flight. The purser did not introduce herself at any point either. I remember her name from her name tag, but since I was never addressed by name, I will reciprocate and simply refer to her as “the purser” from now on

There was an announcement by the pilot that meals were available for all J pax and Y pax in certain fare classes, and that meal options were available in seat pockets. I looked but couldn’t find the options (the purser came by to hand them out later – I guess the announcement was meant for Y).

We took off 50 minutes late. No amenities were available, except the pillow and blanket placed on my seat.

HARD PRODUCT

Flydubai has 10 J seats, consisting of 2-2 seats in Rows 1 and 3, and 1-1 “throne seats” in Row 2. Having booked this flight pretty far in advance, I managed to snag one of the two “throne seats”. flydubai doesn’t charge more for them or reserve them for status pax, which was advantageous for me.



Seat 2E, one of the 2 throne seats on the plane. Apart from the 3 thrones in the respective toilets, of course.

As business class seating goes, throne seats are among the top few options when it comes to privacy and space. There was more than adequate storage space and tabletop space, but there were some issues with the seat as well.


Storage options on the left of the seat. At the bottom, there is a lever which holds the tray table in a retracted position.


Coat hook and pop-out light.


Storage, with a built-in LED light. Accessing this requires you to twist quite a bit in your seat.


Open storage space by my foot, and a tabletop next to the window. Not sure why the tabletop was designed in this way – I would have preferred if the entire top surface was level, so I could place my laptop at a more ergonomic angle.

I looked up and realized that I had three air vents to myself. I also had three lamps (activated with manual switches next to the lamps), but these were configured for the usual 3-across seating in economy, and so all 3 lamps did not point at the right place for my seat. There was no way to adjust the lamp direction either - probably why the seat came with its own reading light.


3 air vents and 3 lamps for me – none of which were pointed at my seat

Seat recline controls were pretty standard – two buttons for seat recline, two for the footwell. The lighting button didn’t work– I don’t think it was connected to anything. There wasn’t any button to call the attendant either.


Seat controls and the IFE remote

The IFE screen was an adequate size for the seat – nothing to shout about at all, and certainly not industry-leading. It’s probably only a couple of inches above industry-leading economy IFE screens. Unfortunately on this flight, the IFE was not working for the entire plane. What a disappointment.


The IFE screen. On most flights, it would probably serve as an adequate screen. On my flight, it served as a barely-passable mirror.

The tray table was supported only on one side, so it wasn’t the sturdiest – typing on my laptop caused the table to constantly flex up and down. The table also couldn’t be pushed forwards or backwards, which meant that the table dug into my torso when I tried to use it in a half-reclined position. Also, the seat controls were blocked by the tray table, so it was really hard to adjust the recline with the tray table deployed. Finally, the tray table seems to be slightly inclined – any glass that I put on the table without a tablecloth or coaster underneath would slowly slide towards me.


Tray table folds out as shown on the left, and then you rotate it to get the position on the right.


Tray table blocks the seat controls - i could still recline my seat, but had to guess where the buttons were.


"Wanna see a magic trick?"

The footwell was adequate in a sitting position – I could move my feet around comfortably. However, it narrows considerably further in - once the seat was in a lie-flat position, the footwell became restrictive. As a side sleeper, I managed to arrange my feet sideways, but just barely.


Footwell when sitting up


Footwell space in a lie-flat postion – my feet are pretty much as wide apart as they can get

Most of the issues I’ve mentioned so far are minor annoyances, or common problems with J seating (such as restrictive footwells). However, I had two major gripes with the hard product.

First, there are NO power outlets. Individual power outlets are very common on full-service Economy seats, and pretty much a bare minimum on Business. flydubai may be a budget airline, but not having a power outlet in their (rather new) Business seats is a major oversight. There was a USB port, but with the IFE system down, the USB port didn’t work either, which left me at the mercy of my batteries.

The other major gripe I had was the seatbelt, which was a 3-point harness (like those in a standard vehicle). I’ve used 3-point harnesses before and I’m fine with them, but the top anchor point in this particular product was placed behind the seat rather than to the side. As a result, the seatbelt rested directly on the side of my neck where my carotid artery/jugular vein was, and consistently afforded me with the delightful sensation of getting choked. I eventually wedged the top strap behind the seatback cushion, so I could get enough blood circulation to make it through the flight. However, this meant that the seatbelt no longer functioned very well as a seatbelt (it couldn’t tighten or loosen much), and it popped out periodically, as if it was a monster breaking out of its containment and coming for me. The picture below shows the problem:


Left: The top anchor (red circle) is behind the seat, but ideally it would have been placed to the side (blue circle). Center: Seatbelt pressing on my neck instead of shoulder Right: The solution, which worked for short periods of time.

Thankfully, my batteries survived the 5+ hours, and I survived my battle with the seatbelt choke-monster.

SEAT SELECTION

With 3 rows of J seats, there aren’t many seats to choose from, but there are clear advantages and disadvantages here.

The Row 2 throne seats are the clear winner for solo travelers due to the extra storage. They are also the most private seats available on the flight, although not entirely private – I couldn’t make eye contact with the pax in the other aisle when sitting fully upright in my seat, but I could have seen what was on the screen of the pax in 2A if they had a laptop out. Ideally the privacy screen would have been bigger, but I realise that I was already getting more privacy than most other passengers thanks to my throne seat.



View from my seat - perfect for snooping on 2A's laptop screen, since they won't be able to see me looking at them

Row 1 seats are the dark horse here, and offer some advantages for couples traveling together who want to converse without the entire Business cabin and galley hearing them. Because they are bulkhead seats, the footwells are significantly more spacious. There is also significantly more legroom, as there is a greater distance between the main seat assembly and the wall in front where the screen and footwell are located. Of course, the tradeoff is significantly less privacy and storage space.

Row 3 seats are unquestionably the worst, with restrictive footwells and lack of privacy/storage.

TOILETS

There was a toilet at the front of the plane for J pax and crew. As expected for a narrowbody, it was small. The sink was tiny, and it took some effort to avoid spilling water outside the sink. The toilet made use of the curvature of the fuselage, so when I was standing and peeing, the wall of the plane was about 3 inches from my face. Tissues were available, but the crew seem to have misaligned the box of tissues, and it was impossible to get a piece of tissue out without tearing it.

Being a Business-designated bathroom, there were also scented lotions from luxury brands and amenity kits- oops, wrong flight again. For this flight, the amenities in the toilet consisted of a hand sanitizer and air freshener, along with a bottle of hand soap affixed to the sink.


The J/crew toilet. You can definitely tell that this is meant for premium cabins based on the luxuriously-appointed decor and spacious interior.


Tissues could be seen behind the designated receptacle, but couldn’t be easily taken out. Very environmentally-friendly, cuts down on tissue paper usage by 99%.


“Amenities “ in the bathroom. flydubai achieves the “surgical chic” aesthetic successfully in my opinion.

SOFT PRODUCT

The service onboard the flight started out promising, but fizzled out after the meal service and can best be described as a “budget plus” airline experience in J.

Hot towels were passed out after takeoff, which was nice. The purser also passed out printed menus (which was the first time I got to see what food was available on this flight).


Food and drink menu. I called it a “drink” menu rather than “drinks” because… well… let’s not spoil the next few paragraphs, shall we?

Food service began shortly after takeoff. The purser came around to take our food and drink orders. I asked for a glass of champagne along with the herb crusted fish.

Drinks were served first. The champagne was Duval-Leroy, which was a decent, value-for-money champagne used by some other airlines in J. I got a pack of nuts with my drink while the meals were prepared, but I was expecting hot food so I didn’t eat them.

It took ~ 10 minutes for the meals to be prepared. In the meantime, the purser walked by a few times and did not offer to top up beverages for anyone.

When the hot food came, it was served with an additional glass of water. Food was served on a tablecloth with metal cutlery, but it was all pre-plated.


Food. (this caption was intentionally left bland to reflect the averageness of the meal)

If not for the plastic salt and pepper shakers and the plates, this could have been an above-average Economy meal. The bread was not toasted, so it was cold and rather hard. The chickpea salad appetizer was refreshing. The herb crusted fish was tasty, but the crust was soggy (I understand the challenges of in-flight catering, but why set yourself up for failure? Why not a baked/grilled fish in cream or tomato reduction?). The lemon drizzle cake was quite dense and moist, but still tasty I guess.

After the meal, cabin lights were dimmed. The dimmer switch for the cabin lights also seemed to control the service level on the plane, because the service I received after this was pretty much non-existent - I slept for 1-2 hours, but when I was awake, I did not see any drinks or snacks being offered.

There was an incident which was a good illustration of the service level. I was slowly sipping on the first glass of champagne I got at the start of the flight, so it wasn’t cleared away with my main meal. After I had finished the champagne, I left the glass on the tabletop next to my seat, but nobody offered to clear it. I later finished the small bottle of water that was placed by my seat, and placed the crushed bottle next to the glass. Cabin crew definitely walked up and down the aisle multiple times after that, but even though the bottle and glass were placed next to the aisle for many hours, it was never cleared.

The couple behind me brought their cups to the galley to get rid of them. I wanted to see how long it would take the cabin crew to clear my empty glass and bottle, so I didn’t follow suit. To my surprise, the glass and empty bottle remained on my table for the entire flight – it was never cleared, even during pre-landing checks by the cabin crew. I fell back asleep after getting ready for landing and forgot about the issue. I was later awakened by the plane touching down and braking, and to my horror I saw the cup and bottle slide off my tabletop and drop onto the floor with a loud “clunk”. Thankfully the glass didn’t break – it rolled somewhere, and that was the last I saw of it.


The glass in question which accompanied me for the entire flight. It worked pretty well as an emotional support glass, although it got startled and ran away from me upon touchdown.

LANDING

We landed at a remote stand in Dubai and had to take a bus to the main terminal, offering me a chance to experience the sweltering Dubai heat (even at 11pm) for a few minutes. J got off first, and had a dedicated bus with seating for everyone. I’m not sure where in the airport our plane was parked, but the bus literally took 17 minutes to get to the passenger terminal. Not 17 minutes to load pax, but 17 minutes from the point the doors closed and the bus started moving, to when the doors opened again outside the passenger terminal. If I were in Y, I would have had to wait for the bus to load while sweating (with all doors open, the air-conditioning in the bus was no match for the outside heat), and then stand for 17 minutes as the bus made its unfathomably long journey.


Perks of flydubai flights include a free sauna experience and sightseeing tour of the entire Dubai airport - for all fare classes, even Saver awards.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

This flight was pretty hard to judge. First of all, I went in with a chip on my shoulder - this flight was part of a journey which included much better service levels, and I would have been happier if Emirates had served this route with their widebodies. But even looking back on the flight objectively, it was hard to judge because flydubai business class is positioned in such an odd, niche corner of the market.

On one hand, it is a budget airline, and the fact that it has lie-flat seats instead of recliner seats in a narrowbody already means flydubai exceeds expectations - especially when some European airlines' business class is basically the same seats as economy but with the middle seats blocked off and used as a tabletop) . On the other hand, 6 hours crosses the line from regional to medium-haul territory where expectations are higher, and if Emirates wants to use flydubai as an extension of their network, judging flydubai along with the Emirates experience isn't unwarranted - especially when their Business fares are comparable to full-service carriers.

On one hand, I enjoyed the throne seat, even without the IFE (I tend to leave shows on for background watching during flights, rather than focus on them). On the other hand, not every seat is like mine, and even with my above-average seat I found it lacking in certain areas - like I mentioned, there was no power socket. Also I generally expect my seat not to strangle me, I'm particular like that.

On one hand, there was hot towel service and champagne, and the food service was a smidge above what I would expect on an average full-service Economy flight. On the other hand, the complete lack of service afterwards was shocking in Business. Not clearing an empty glass before landing was probably also a minor safety hazard.

The best way to describe flydubai business class is probably a decent hard product that was accidentally plonked down onto a budget flight. You get a decent lie-flat seat and a few niceties, but all of that is bookended by a budget-level pre-boarding experience and service level.

All things considered, I felt that flydubai offered a less-than-Business experience, on a budget airline, at full-service Business pricing. If there are competing airlines, you might be better off with them. But ultimately, the best -and the defining- perk of flydubai business class is that it codeshares with Emirates, and reaches destinations that Emirates doesn't. If you're taking an Emirates flight and Emirates doesn't serve your destination, your options are either (a) take flydubai's business class, (b) take flydubai's economy class, or (c) fly with another airline, and prepare to deal with the hassle of immigration and re-checking your bags.

To sum up - if you're considering flydubai Business Class, you probably don't have many other good options, so despite all the flaws, this is the best you're going to get unless you're willing to clear immigration and baggage drop multiple times. Which makes this review pretty pointless, I guess.


Thank you for coming to my TED talk

qraec777

Something that irks me about FlyDubai, yes its a decent carrier no doubt, but the fares for Business Class are ridiculously priced for a LCC. Sometimes, more expensive than EK on the same route, almost around the same time (taking the KWI-DXB sector for example). Even the Skywards Awards for FZ are priced at a much higher range compared to EK.

camsean

The flight certainly sounds disappointing. Perhaps the lie flat seats leads to greater expectations than one should have for J on an LCC?

Thanks for such a detailed review. You should post it to the trip reports forum for greater exposure.

Beepbop

Glad you liked it. Is posting the same content on multiple sub-forums allowed here?

I'd argue that it was the price, rather than the lie-flat seats, that led to inflated expectations. If the flight was EUR1000-1500, I would have found this very good value. If it were the recliner-style seats at its current price point, I would have very seriously considered flying this segment as a separate ticket on another airline and dealing with another round of immigration/check-in at Dubai.

camsean

I’m not sure, but I think you can ask the mods to move it.

suley

Just double checked as I recall, any Flydubai flight booked through EK there is a surcharge for booking via EK.

Just double checked a recent ticket as I was sure I read it and its there