Hi All,

I will be planning an Umrah (pilgrimage) trip in March and wanted to know how this sector is.

Upon pricing a seat on the EK site, it shows only Y and F seats, no J.

Has anyone flown this sector and can they pass comment on F.

Equipment shows 777-300 so its not all doom and gloom.

Many thanks

F is actually J seating but it is just called F. You get F class frequent flyer mileage and F lounge access in Dubai though. Service is fine for such a short flight, and seating is adequate (46" pitch in a 2x3x2 configuration.)

Cheers,

And pay F class pricing as well, I assume?

I think I will use miles to upgrade then...

I assume I would get a layover hotel as well as I will be taking the late flight out from MAN to DXB

Yes.

The one way upgrade from DXB to JED is quite a rip off - 15,000 miles each way.

Cheers,

DXB-JED

FRT1 EK F Round-Trip 1579.00 (USD)

Actually, the distance is a lot farther than I thought. Probably nearly 3 hours flight time. Still not cheap.

Ex-MAN, I'd definitely do:

ZGBRT AF Z Round-Trip 1950.00 (USD)

Or the LH equivalent, which isn't much higher.

Yes, 15k is a bit steep considering a similar time flight is Dubai to Lahore and thats 12500 miles when I could not be bothered to pay for a full J class...

Thanks again!

Flew the JED-DXB leg of this back in the summer (whole trip was DXB-RUH-JED-DXB on SAA and EK) and as with other EK KSA flights, experienced massive, horrible delays.

Some equipment problem meant we were delayed upwards of 5 hours, with little information. I'm Skywards Gold, so was able to use the lounge - but that's no use when the ground staff won't check you in.

I understand this is fairly commonplace for these EK flights - certainly the majority of Dubaians who've used the route that I've spoken to have experienced delays ex-JED.

Even in the summer flight was fairly full, so I'm not surprised at the high fare. Plane was new, though (believe it was 777 300ER but not sure) and ice-equipped, etc.

YMMV, but from my experience I would suggest looking at other routes.

Check-in at JED was the worst I've ever seen -- they recommended we show up 5 hrs in advance and boy were they right! It literally took 15 minutes to check each person in. Somehow the flight still left on time though. This was right after Hajj so it may be better at other times of the year.

5 hours...yeah thats too long...but I guess this is how things are in Hajj. Did this flight leave from the normal airport in Jeddah or the Hajj terminal? I've used JED airport several times and its fine.
15 mins per passenger at checkin...I wonder why...arguing about excessive luggage I guess? Or maybe many overbookings?

I am looking at around 1800/2200 GBP
MAN-DXB return in J and DXB - JED return in Y

Then I will want an onward DXB-LHE in J as well..

there is very little competition or capacity on the flights between KSA and Dubai.. it really annoys me that i have to book so far in advance for these sectors. i recommend flying MEA of course.. via BEY

You cud fly J to Kuwait on BA, and onwards to Jeddah on Jazeera Airways. Only 2.5 hours to Jeddah from Kuwait, so flying Jazeera Plus seat maybe fine.

All in at GBP 1560.-

It may have been the Hajj terminal - I'm not sure since it was the only time I have ever been there. They blamed the 15 min per person check-in on the computers, but it seemed to be inept check-in agents to me.

You also had groups of people jockeying to be first in line (probably many of whom had never flown before in their lives except for the flight over). Everyone also seemed to have the max baggage allowence.

To put it in perspective though, that was one of the least stressful things that we dealt with during Hajj.