oldclipper

Has anyone flown on this new flight? Is it on EY metal, or 9W metal? Any comments on the condition of the J Class seats, meal service, etc? Which departure terminal does it use? And can you use USA Preclearance for this flight?

Thanks in advance!

jozdemir

I have this flight booked in a couple of weeks, my itinerary definitely says:

"Operated by Jet Airways Configured Aircraft Operated By Etihad"

If you go to FlightRadar24 you'll see that it's operated by one of two 9W owned, EY operated 77Ws, A6-JAA or A6-JAB

As far as preclearance goes, EY state that this flight is ineligible for it unfortunately:

"Please note: This service is not available for the Etihad Airways flight number EY103 to New York (JFK)."

http://www.etihad.com/en-us/before-y...-preclearance/

kkjay77

It's rather fortunate that pre-clearance isn't available.

tridentnyc

I just flew on this exact flight yesterday. It is on 9W metal, with a majority of 9W staff...in fact it felt much more like a 9W soft product than an EY soft product. I flew in first class, so I can't comment on the comfort of the seats in J. The suite in first was nice but I felt the fabric on the seats couldn't have been better than the soft Italian leather on EY's first class hard product. The privacy was nice but I was wishing I was in the nice soft leather on EY metal, instead of the twill like fabric on the 9W seats we were in.

I had a pretty underwhelming experience overall in first class actually. The menu was almost 100% Indian cuisine based. There were virtually no international food options on my flight. There was an all day dining menu and a lunch menu, again, almost all Indian dishes offered, probaby 90% Indian. When I asked the onboard chef why this was, he said that because 9W was being groomed to take flights 102 and 103 over in May, that Etihad wanted to start making the cuisine on these flights more Indian "centric". That's great if you are in the mood for virtually nothing else but Indian on a 13 hour flight. My wife and I love Indian food and actually had Indian for lunch in Abu Dhabi and were looking forward to some international or western options while onboard. What was also strange is there was no printed breakfast menu and this is on a flight that arrives at 8:20 am! When we asked if we could get breakfast we could see this threw our onboard chef a curveball and then he said he would "try and pull something together for us". When he asked what we'd like we both said "soft boiled eggs" with some sort of meat, like chicken sausage or turkey bacon...no pork of course. He then told us his galley was only stocked with "whipped eggs" and could only make us an omelet or scrambled eggs, that because they were planning to serve lunch before landing, that they carried no whole eggs! Again, why would you serve "lunch" on a flight that is arriving at 8:30 am local time?

The flight leaves from terminal 3 and US pre-clearance is not available on this flight, either due to the late departure time of 2:10 am or because of the 9W co branding. I feel this is another downside to taking these 9W flights as opposed to a pure EY flight, like #'s 100 or 101 which are available for pre clearance, although we did breeze through immigration when we arrived at JFK, less than five minutes actually.

I spoke and emailed with EY on a number of occasions prior and after booking my tickets because I was concerned that my flights (I also took flt 102 JFK-AUH) might not "feel" like a 100% EY flight. Even though I was assured it absolutely would, it definitely did not. Now this was my first experience with EY so I had nothing to compare it to but I can tell you I was seriously underwhelmed with many aspects of both my flights, so much so that I have written a letter of complaint to EY and am awaiting a follow up response to their first acknowledgement of my email.

Some positives: I got the EY chauffeur three times: to and from JFK and to AUH from Abu Dhabi and the service was faultless. The lounge in terminal 3 was fairly quiet at that time of the morning and my wife and I both had massages is the Six Senses Spa. The dining in the lounge was nice, but again, the food was mediocre at best.

I am used to flying Cathay Pacific to this region and Asia and I must say that I feel CX has EY beat hands down on a number of levels, most notably the food but definitely the onboard service too...by a mile! None of the food we had on either flight was much to get excited about, in fact on my outbound flight 102, I ordered a rib eye medium rare and it came back like shoe leather, very very over done...and this was with the onboard chef looking after it! Never really saw the benefit of the onboard chef with any of our meals, felt gimmicky and both our chefs, although trying to be helpful, just kinda had too many questions and simple requests were often answered with, "let me see what I can do, or I'm sorry we don't have that". I'm not talking some weird extravagant requests like "lobster thermidor" or "eggs benedict", I'm talking two soft boiled eggs! Really? CX has no onboard chef and our food has always been flawless and the presentation much nicer as well.

The IFE was EY's "E-Box" system and it had a lot to choose from, so no complaints there, worked well (except for the inflight maps) and had large variety of programming to choose from.

I used AAdvantage miles for this trip and would much rather have used them on CX, after all the ooh's and aah's about how great EY is, especially in first, after two flights in first, my wife and I were wondering what all the fuss was about. I rate the onboard service closer to an airline like BA, certainly not a carrier like CX IMO.

I did peek in the business class section and the seats looked comfortable in a reverse herringbone layout but I can't vouch for the quality of the food or the service in J however. The seats in J did look more comfortable to my eye than the one's offered in EY's Pearl Class. May make a difference if you are flying in J.

I guess I'd suggest to those thinking of flying on the 9W flights (102 or 103) to try and get on a pure EY operated flight (100 or 101) if possible. Just never felt the crew were completely on their game. By the way, it looked like first class was the only cabin where some EY uniformed crew were working. Both business and economy had crew in fully 9W uniforms, but with both 9W and EY badges, in first class the onboard chef was EY uniformed but the other cabin attendant was in a 9W uniform.

Good luck, hopefully your experiences will be better than mine on these flights, I really had expected more from EY.

zainman

Fly the other flight and the EY metal if you can...

mabramovich

This is really disappointing to hear. My whole family is ticketed in F on AA miles on this flight in January which I booked before this 9W switch was announced and now I am super disappointed. I don't think there's anything that can be done though

phoenixdude

Hi, can any one share their experience in Y class.

Thanks
PD -

tridentnyc

Mabramovich,

IF you simply swap out flights 102 & 103 for EY operated flights 100 & 101 (assuming award availability is there) AA will not charge you any change fees as your routing and class of service will not change.

I see you saw my mini trip report on the lackluster performance of the 9W flights. The best thing I can say is the cabins are private and the whole first class section is nice but that's about it.

I've been going back and forth with EY customer service complaining that this was essentially a "bait & switch" as I was assured multiple times on multiple phone calls that the only thing not "purely" EY would be the aircraft. NOT!!!! These are code share flights pure and simple and nothing more. The only thing that seemed genuinely EY on these flights was the badges on the 9W crews uniforms and the pillows and blankets!

Call every day if you have to, to try and get the real deal, you'll be glad you did. These were no more than sub par 9W flights with a definite sub par experience as well. I never really felt I was on an EY operated flight. My wife and I wish we had our 360,000 miles back or at least had spent a full third less miles on Cathay for what would have been twice the experience!

jozdemir

Honestly, I have to disagree with you based on my experience on the 9W operated flight.

Myself and two other FTers flew EY103 on the outbound and EY100 on the inbound so were able to compare the two cabins. All three of us preferred the 9W 77W overall.

One of those FTers wrote a post in another thread about it:

From this thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/milea...first-135.html

whimike

From what I understand the 2nd JFK flight only came online because EY was getting these 9W aircraft. I don't think there was ever a switch, per se. I could be wrong, though, but that is what I understand.

Are you saying when you booked the flights you were told them were on EY metal?

Did you get the 9W flights in both directions?

mabramovich

I don't think that's an option -- I have 4 F seats on EY 103. I was monitoring EY award space, saw that they seemed to release the whole cabin for one day when inventory is loaded, then scaled back to 2 seats/flight. So of course there's no more award space now. I also realize this is the ultimate first world problem...

Well perhaps that was what was announced, but nothing was showing up online when booking or searching for awards. It just said "EY 103." Some time ago my reservation was updated with a later departure (2.10 am instead of 1.45 am) and operator information: "operated by Jet Airways aricraft operated by Etihad." There was definitely no obvious way to know EY 103 was 9W-operated when I booked at the beginning of Feb.

tridentnyc

I did have 9W flights in both directions. Also, these plane are never to be in EY's fleet. The deal according to my calls with EY is that 9W is taking over these routes fully on May 1st (today actually). From March 1st EY was operating these flights as EY numbered flights...NOT... code shares...this was what I was told and have email copies of. That is why I was so bummed out when the experience was less than stellar and clearly not a flight wholly operated by EY on 9W metal as I was also assured.

tridentnyc

This has been my point exactly all along. My wife and I have traveled extensively and have flown many carriers long haul in their first class cabins. Some carriers are better than others, in this case I'd say Cathay is WAY better than EY or 9W or...ummm...hmmm. See? Even a month after my flights with EY (9W) I still don't know "who" I flew with! I'm gonna say EY as it was an EY issued ticket, out of EY's terminal in AUH, with a menu printed with EY letterhead...my cabin was stocked with EY bedding etc. etc.

The crew however was clearly 9W from their uniforms and the fact that they were wearing dual badges on their chests...one for EY and one for 9W.

These flights were to be "wholly operated" (except for the metal) according to EY customer service and this was NOT the case. I really feel like I was duped or the victim of a "bait and switch" I know this is a VERY first world problem and using a word like "victim" is a bit ridiculous but I'm disappointed in EY and felt like I was misled.

Will you have an enjoyable flight? I'm sure you will as the seats are comfortable and the cabin is great. Just hope that they serve you something other than a menu with almost 100% Indian options on a flight that departs at 2:00 am. Oh I forgot, you can always request the "whipped eggs" if you don't feel like having nothing but Indian for 13 hours.

By the way, according to EY customer service, flights 102 & 103 will be flown, serviced etc. wholly by 9W starting today, May 1st, so at least the pretense of these being EY flights will go away. From today forward they should be considered simply code share flights.

ik0000

I actually took this flight (102) on May 1st - and it was still operated by Etihad (Etihad bedding, Etihad menus, though I didn't notice the uniforms). I also liked the plane (business class) better than the flight back (101). There seemed to be more bathrooms, more comfortable seat layout, etc. Also, even though the online system wouldn't let me book a Chauffeur through the site, technically since it was operated by Etihad I was able to get a car to my hotel at the Chauffeur desk in Abu Dhabi. My experience with the service on the plane seemed about equivalent on both (very good). My experience with Etihad in general off the plane, though, was not what I was expecting/hoping for.

rlbmorton

In my experience the first class seat on this flight is actually more roomy and with better storage than the etihad first class seat. The service seemed the same to me. I really like the time of arrival in NY, can get a lot more done.