Notes from our first ever Emirates trip
 

- Blacklane provided excellent vehicles both in the US (Cadillac Escalade) and in India (Mercedes E-class)
- Luggage was delivered very quickly when we arrived in Hyderabad, India
- Shared SAS lounge in EWR was barely passable
- DXB lounge was extraordinary in every respect
- My wife mentioned to a flight attendant that it was our wedding anniversary. They were kind enough to take a Polaroid and give us a card signed by the business class attendants. Very nice touch!
- Meals were uniformly excellent. My wife usually orders the lacto-ovo vegetarian meal which is not offered for some reason but the vegan meals turned out to be very good.
- Overall, we really enjoyed our trip

Video and screens:
- No isolation between the screens. You have no choice but to see what your neighbor is watching.
- Your neighbor can inadvertently angle their reading light in such way as to reflect off your screen in a very annoying manner. Could be a nuisance if you were on your own.
- The main screen is a touch screen but is too far to reach when you are sitting. To overcome this problem, a small tablet is provided that can be used to select videos. But this tablet must be locked in its socket during takeoff and landing.
- Exceptionally good selection of video content

The seats were very different on the two legs (EWR-DXB) and (DXB-HYD) so I will rate them separately.

EWR-DXB
- Leather upholstery, very comfortable
- Full flat bed which was very comfortable. Unlike some other reviews posted previously, I did not feel that it was too narrow
- Wife and I had two seats together, window and aisle. I did not really have too much problem stepping over my wife to reach the aisle, certainly no worse than on BA Club World
- Seat controls were easy to use and worked smoothly
- There was a small cubby with sliding plastic doors to keep phone, AirPods etc in flight but was hard to reach from the seat.

DXB-HYD
- Cloth upholstery - rather hard and lumpy and not very comfortable
- Not a full flat bed
- Functional but very simple seat controls - a bit hard to adjust due to lag in the controls
- The flimsy partitions between seats looked a bit like a Fisher-Price plastic toy.
- Absolutely no storage space other than a pocket on the seat in front

In terms of seating comfort, my ranking (so you can see my basis for comparison):
- Best: United Polaris, BA Club Suites
- Acceptable: Emirates long haul, BA Club World, Swiss long haul business
- Bad: Lufthansa, Emirates short haul

Thanks for this write-up. I agree with the poor substitute of many non-EK outstation lounges compared to “proper” EK ones.

I personally can’t see how any of EK’s 777 J class offering can rank anywhere above the bottom pile of airlines, especially when travelling solo. But I know that some people rate it (quite) highly. I struggle to understand why EK has no plans to refurbish any of its 777s J class to a 1-2-1 offering, which imo is the minimum benchmark for acceptable J class these days.

I agree - direct aisle access is indeed becoming the standard. Despite lacking this feature, I think that the Emirates long haul 777 J is still somewhat competitive because the flat bed itself is quite comfortable.

That's an easy one... they don't need to as they are filling expensive seats with 2x3x2 :D

Sad but true! See also the recent miles devaluation…

thank you for the review! I am traveling SFO to India next month on the A380.

I am happy to hear about Blacklane as they are my confirmed car service as well.

Despite the less-than-ideal seating arrangement on 777s, Emirates has an advantage in the reach of their network in South Asia. For example, experienced travelers to second-tier cities in India really appreciate the ability to avoid unpleasant transits in Delhi and Mumbai. In a few years, if Air India gets its act together with the new aircraft being ordered, Emirates might finally start feeling some competition.