Hi all,
I'll soon fly the ZRH - DXB route on Emirates A345. Can anyone tell me about the best seats (numbers) in Y (leg room)?
The upgrade to C is 1900 CHF - is it worth to do for the short 6-hr. flight? Any comments are appreciated.
Thanks and best regards

Greetings:

I pulled out some excerpts (see below) from a previous post I made regarding EKs Y service on the A340-500. Not sure what the passenger loads will be like from ZRH but they were extremely light on the JFK route affording passengers the opportunity to spread out. Also, I would say that for the relatively short duration of your flight a paid-upgrade would be wasted (just my opinion), now a freebee is an entirely different story http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/newre...e=1&p=3592551#
Big Grin. The DXB-JFK leg was over 14 hours and I was not uncomfortable in the slightest...so ca. 6 hours should be a dream! Also, the Y legroom is far better than I have experienced on many airlines, so it makes a great differerence.

The seating in Y was actually quite pleasant. The only thing I would be cautious of is that the IFE is under the window seat in front of you on the two-seat sides so leg room is a bit restricted. Row 17 has two IFE boxes in front of you as row 16 is the bulkhead and IFE screens are not located in the seatback -- I am assuming this is the same for all rows behind a blukhead or exit row. The middle section (4 across) had multiple IFE boxes but as I did not sit there cannot remember exactly where they were.


Bulkheads (Row 16 in the first Y cabin) provide extra legroom but be wary as EK reserves them for families with small children as the bassinets are located there and on both flights families were sitting at at least one of the bulkheads so it can get noisy at times. Ask at check-in for a bulkhead or exit row as they are only available to the rest of us at check-in.

Hope this help and enjoy the flight!

I'm flying LHR - AKL next month and have managed to reserve bulkhead seats on 3 of the 4 flights I am on (incl. row 16 on the 345). All I did was call the Skywards lady and chat to her nicely. I have only just joined the club and have no elite status.

Did the bulkhead look like it had any better legroom as usual? I've heard that the seats are a bit narrower to accomodate the IFE.

The bulkhead definately has more leg room so you should be quite comfortable. On all of my flights more than one section of the first bulkhead was filled with families with small children who were up and about throughout most of the flight. I did notice that the children liked to go over to the bulkhead to look out the windows. On the JFK flight the majority of families seemed to be in the first Y section anyway. However as there were 80 people total (all classes) on the flight you could pretty much move wherever you desired (within Y, of course).

As for seat selection...it is hit or miss with the U.S. reservations office (in Y) as they will actually only reserve (according to the U.S. Website and who you speak with) any seats in advance for two people travelling together (i.e. family) which I was, but had to make an extra effort to get seats in advance. I suppose the single traveller is on their own. Based upon your experience I am assuming this is not the case globally but the NY route was still new when I flew it so perhaps they were working out the kinks.

But the inflight service was superb and the 500 a great aircraft. Have a great flight!

The seat pitch in Y on the 340-500 is 34 inch = 86 cm. You will be quiet comfortabel in every aisle seat.

How is it, that Emirates operates on the short Z�rich - Dubai route the long range A340-500?

The policy of EK is that all skywards members can reserve seats ahead of time if a EK FFP (skyward) number is registered in the reservation.