ETIHAD versus Emirates

Old Nov 8, 2011, 1:18 pm
  #46  
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So the consensus is that EY's service, F&B is superior to EK?

Last edited by m0hamed; Nov 8, 2011 at 8:37 pm
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Old Nov 8, 2011, 7:40 pm
  #47  
 
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I've done both but only in J and EY wins hands down in the air - seat, food & service but EK wins on the ground(except the EK J lounge in Dubai which is a zoo and hardly a relaxing experience-it may as well be another terminal!!)
Ah how I miss the GF F lounge and F experience for the bargain price.
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Old Nov 8, 2011, 8:25 pm
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This is off topic, but JFK to India First Class, what should I choose EY or LH\LX?.
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Old Nov 8, 2011, 8:39 pm
  #49  
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Thanks CederJet. It appears Y introduced Onboard chefs in F from October 2011. Given that all the local, and senior staff I know at EY are ex GF, this is unsurprising!

I think EY's suite is more elegant, the f&B appears to be better by all accounts, and AUH First lounge looks rather impressive. I just discovered that they have daybeds! Looking forward to it, althought EY is taking F off AUH-CAI-AUH in January so my return will be in C for 3 hours...
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Old Nov 8, 2011, 10:13 pm
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Originally Posted by m0hamed
Thanks CederJet. It appears Y introduced Onboard chefs in F from October 2011. Given that all the local, and senior staff I know at EY are ex GF, this is unsurprising!

I think EY's suite is more elegant, the f&B appears to be better by all accounts, and AUH First lounge looks rather impressive. I just discovered that they have daybeds! Looking forward to it, althought EY is taking F off AUH-CAI-AUH in January so my return will be in C for 3 hours...
EY is definately offering an ex AN and GF service in F Class.
The chef on GF F flights was just magic and I dont doubt the EY experience will be any less. GF has retained the chefs for its Falcon Gold Class thankfully. The GF lounge in BAH also had day beds/resting room which was great for those transits where timing for a hotel was just a tad short. GF were always nice and gave me hotels for even 4 hr transits at times, I think that was status based and F/full J travel with them. Not to mention the Movenpick where all F and J pax were put up was literally 3 mins away by car.

I think Hogan is doing with EY what he always wanted to do with GF except the Abu Dhabi government has 's*&^t loads' more money than the Bahraini Government. He clearly saw that and swam down the pond accordingly

CJ

Last edited by Cedar Jet; Nov 9, 2011 at 8:29 pm
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Old Nov 13, 2011, 2:13 pm
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Having just got off my first experience in EY here are my 2 cents from an F perspective:
- Transit at AUH is vastly better than at DXB (with the priority security lane), but it sort of loses out if your connecting plane is parked at gate 35, long long walk, and the lack of the dual airbridge. But I am not sure if all gates are the same.

- Lounge at AUH, what can I say, superb. I wish EK would revamp their F showers to have a proper toilettes in there. EY's F lounge location (after security), and the fact no announcements are made makes it an idle cocoon away from the noises. Sadly this can be easily spoilt by a loud group or kids playing with the computers.

- The EY suites are better in every way than EK's. They're roomier, more practical, less cluttred, easier to operate (manually operated doors). I had a good 8 hour sleep on AUH-SYD. A pretty flat bed and a soft well sized duvet, with the ottoman providing that extra feeling of comfort. EK's is lumpy not 100% flat in my view (toward the legrest at least).
A big plus on EY was being able to get out of the seat during the meal service (simply lowered the armrests and pushed the shelf tray forward), whereas in EK I would have been locked in place.

- The AV controller is easier to grasp and use but the E-Box interface is way too slow. Overall however I prefer it over EK's ICE. The headphones provided by EY are better too.

- The food experience, well, I didn't have just a meal with EY, it was proper breakfast and dinner. The little touches that go into the service makes a difference (for example placing the napkin on my lap, bringing just what I ordered instead of everything and whatever).

- EK has an advantage with the A380 shower experience and the wide bodies on the ME routes. EK also has its toilettes packed with toiletries (not that you need them but sometimes they come in handy) whereas EY had none. Also EK provides some perfume, deodorant and a hair brush with its amenities kit whereas EY does not. EY's PJ is softer but I prefer EK's zip-less top.

After this 'wow' moment, I can't wait to fly with EY again. Even if my experience was spoilt at the end by an hour delay that forced me to leave my luggage in Sydney as it was too late for QF to accept it.

Last edited by edy4eva; Nov 13, 2011 at 2:43 pm
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Old Nov 13, 2011, 2:51 pm
  #52  
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Thanks for the detailed report. It seems service on EY can be hit and miss but I shall go in with low expectations, and hopefully be pleasantly surprised. I'm used to BA F where the service and new First are impeccable. Will be interesting to compare the two.
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Old Nov 13, 2011, 6:41 pm
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Slightly OT but I see it this way:

Perfect hard and soft product= SQ
Perfect hard product surley and/or not 100% polished soft product= QF, BA, EY and EK
Perfect soft product but poor hard product= MH, TG

You cant win unless you're an SQ head these days
My 2 cents
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Old Nov 14, 2011, 2:53 am
  #54  
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Cedar Jet, I suppose that you have not flown on any of the SQ planes that have 1980's style Biz seats, you know, about half the fleet??
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Old Nov 14, 2011, 4:31 am
  #55  
 
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Originally Posted by edy4eva
Having just got off my first experience in EY here are my 2 cents from an F perspective:
- Transit at AUH is vastly better than at DXB (with the priority security lane), but it sort of loses out if your connecting plane is parked at gate 35, long long walk, and the lack of the dual airbridge. But I am not sure if all gates are the same.

- Lounge at AUH, what can I say, superb. I wish EK would revamp their F showers to have a proper toilettes in there. EY's F lounge location (after security), and the fact no announcements are made makes it an idle cocoon away from the noises. Sadly this can be easily spoilt by a loud group or kids playing with the computers.

- The EY suites are better in every way than EK's. They're roomier, more practical, less cluttred, easier to operate (manually operated doors). I had a good 8 hour sleep on AUH-SYD. A pretty flat bed and a soft well sized duvet, with the ottoman providing that extra feeling of comfort. EK's is lumpy not 100% flat in my view (toward the legrest at least).
A big plus on EY was being able to get out of the seat during the meal service (simply lowered the armrests and pushed the shelf tray forward), whereas in EK I would have been locked in place.

- The AV controller is easier to grasp and use but the E-Box interface is way too slow. Overall however I prefer it over EK's ICE. The headphones provided by EY are better too.

- The food experience, well, I didn't have just a meal with EY, it was proper breakfast and dinner. The little touches that go into the service makes a difference (for example placing the napkin on my lap, bringing just what I ordered instead of everything and whatever).

- EK has an advantage with the A380 shower experience and the wide bodies on the ME routes. EK also has its toilettes packed with toiletries (not that you need them but sometimes they come in handy) whereas EY had none. Also EK provides some perfume, deodorant and a hair brush with its amenities kit whereas EY does not. EY's PJ is softer but I prefer EK's zip-less top.

After this 'wow' moment, I can't wait to fly with EY again. Even if my experience was spoilt at the end by an hour delay that forced me to leave my luggage in Sydney as it was too late for QF to accept it.

Having flown with Etihad and Emirates (one time unintentionally), I have to agree with all the above comments. The only thing that EK beats EY on is its entertainment. Ebox has limited choices, they are the same on every route, and it slow. ICE is a far superior inflight entertainment product. EY also has tasting menus that you can choose to have. For instance on my AUH-JFK flight yesterday I had a 6 course tasting menu with matching wines. Unfortunately sometimes EY fails when the actual food isn't as good as a restaurant. On that flight the food was superb, and the kitchen anytime menu seems to have been updated a bit as well. (Onboard chefs seems to be only on AUH-LHR and AUH-SYD at the moment).
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Old Nov 14, 2011, 6:57 am
  #56  
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Originally Posted by m0hamed
Thanks for the detailed report. It seems service on EY can be hit and miss but I shall go in with low expectations, and hopefully be pleasantly surprised. I'm used to BA F where the service and new First are impeccable. Will be interesting to compare the two.
Would be very interested to read your comparisons against BA F.

Their service can be very "hit & miss" on board, though when it's good it can be great IME.

Their ground service is

Their food, well, it has been very "miss" (mostly) IME. Just my tuppence worth.
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Old Nov 14, 2011, 8:17 am
  #57  
 
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Originally Posted by Cedar Jet
Slightly OT but I see it this way:

Perfect hard and soft product= SQ
Perfect hard product surley and/or not 100% polished soft product= QF, BA, EY and EK
Perfect soft product but poor hard product= MH, TG

You cant win unless you're an SQ head these days
My 2 cents
Couldn't disagree more. I think they've all got their strengths and weaknesses, but I wouldn't say any one of them is perfect.
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Old Nov 14, 2011, 10:00 am
  #58  
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I did prefer EY over EK for a time, I really really liked them (going from nothing to Gold in about 5 minutes) and sang their praises to many people. Then four things happened. I started to notice that quite a lot of the crew were actually not that good. I started to get very tired of seemingly the same half dozen meal choices in J every single month, I started to notice how rubbish their FF program was and lastly, I started to realize that they really did not either fly to a lot of the places I needed to fly to, or with such little frequency to some that they were worthless to me.

All in all EK crew are a bit better than EY, but that is not the deciding factor. Yes even these seemingly limited meal choices are generally far better than what EK offers qualitywise. EK's FF programme is equally as bad, however they can be the best in the World but if they do not fly where and when I need to then they are of little value to me.
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Old Nov 14, 2011, 8:49 pm
  #59  
 
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Originally Posted by hfly
Cedar Jet, I suppose that you have not flown on any of the SQ planes that have 1980's style Biz seats, you know, about half the fleet??
I have flown with SQ infrequently but the flights were nothing short of superb compared with nearly every other carrier Ive flown. Perhaps I was fortunate in having aircraft with latest offering in terms of seats

CX are the same..an excellent carrier in nearly every aspect but some of the regional A330's used on long haul routes are horrid!

CJ
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Old Nov 15, 2011, 4:15 am
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Originally Posted by hfly
I did prefer EY over EK for a time, I really really liked them (going from nothing to Gold in about 5 minutes) and sang their praises to many people. Then four things happened. I started to notice that quite a lot of the crew were actually not that good. I started to get very tired of seemingly the same half dozen meal choices in J every single month, I started to notice how rubbish their FF program was and lastly, I started to realize that they really did not either fly to a lot of the places I needed to fly to, or with such little frequency to some that they were worthless to me.

All in all EK crew are a bit better than EY, but that is not the deciding factor. Yes even these seemingly limited meal choices are generally far better than what EK offers qualitywise. EK's FF programme is equally as bad, however they can be the best in the World but if they do not fly where and when I need to then they are of little value to me.
You thought EY's FF program was bad? Why is that - I think it was one of the best around, before they made the recent changes. And still quite competitive considering you earn full miles on all tickets.
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