SIN-BNE 25AUG 777-300
Sch. Dep. 2120hrs
Act. Dep. 2205hrs

Due to the late arrival of the aircraft from Dubai, the flight was delayed for approximately 30 minutes (or so). Checking in at the counters at Changi, I was escorted from the security point to an empty check-in counter, which was an impressive gesture by emirates even for economy class passengers. When asked if my request for emergency exit seats was successful, I was told that yes it was, and the flight is only 1/3 full, and whether I would have wanted 2 rows of window seats for my brother and myself. Declined the latter and took the emergency exit seats instead (I later regretted this).

While waiting in the holding gate for boarding, we realised that we were the only two Singaporeans for this flight. Smooth boarding process, with priority given to premium class pax and economy class by row numbers. The greeting was as normal, but the plane gave me a very .. how should I say this, it was dull and rather "moody". Beige seats and walls, and beige uniforms on the FAs. One thing that totally threw me off was how cramped the seat was. I knew that emirates does the 10-a-row compared to other airlines' 9-a-row seating in Y class, but the Emergency exit seats totally gave packed-like-sardine a total new sense of cattle class. Sitting on the aisle seat of the emergency exit, my shoulder was continually bumped by the bum of the air stewardess pulling the cart along the aisle for drinks and meals.

I'm not sure if the quick turnaround had anything to do with this, but headsets for the IFEs were not passed around to us or placed on our seats when we boarded. I asked a FA for one after the drink service and she gruntled "not another one", and went behind to get my brother and myself one.

Flight departed on the retimed schedule and towelettes were given out (small like those from Qantas). A rather uneventful flight, all I can remember from this was a drink cart service shortly after the flight levelled out, and a meal service immediately after that. It was a choice of either lemon chicken or beef goulash. I choose the latter and it was good. The trays on Emirates seem to have kept it's original size with 2 appetisers (sashimi and seasonal salad), dessert (cheesecake, yummy!), a nice dinner roll, cheese and crackers, packed mineral water, coffee/tea, small slice of after-dinner chocolate. Other airlines apparently have sliced it in half (QF and SQ, I mean you!!).

The FAs were extremely diligent in checking the toilets, that it seems unnatural if they didn't push the door to check the toilets whenever they walked past. However, I'm not sure if it's just a routine that they peer in to look at the toilets or if they are meant to clean it, because having sat next to them, the smell of human faeces totally lingered on throughout the flight.

While Y class being 1/3 full was a welcomed surprise, screaming babies with trailer-trash parents are not. Wont go into details, all of you will know what i mean.

Breakfast of a croissant, banana muffin and fruits with tea or coffee was served about an hour before landing. An FA came around with a basket of croissant for people who want seconds.

Flight landed at about 7-ish in the morning. Not sure if it's a good thing or not, but we were meant to land at 6.20am together with a 743 Qantas and 772 SQ should the plane departed on its original schedule. All those who have passed through Brisbane will know how impossible getting through immigration is, so having almost a thousand passengers in the arrival hall will mean erm.. think New Delhi in its full glory of a human massacre stampede during morning peak hours. By the time our flight landed the immigration was 3/4-way through clearing a JAL flight from Japan with kids on a field trip.

Nonetheless we managed to get out of the arrival hall about an hour after we stepped off the plane.

BNE-SIN 28AUG 777-300
Sch Dep. 2020
Act. Dep. 2025

Went to the airport about 3h 15m earlier only because I had to return the rental car at that point or be penalised with another day of rental. Horrors of horrors, the emirates counters were filled to the brim. All the counters were opened (about 10, including one for F and J), but there was still a wait of about 20 minutes before it was our turn. Heaps of middle-eastern families (whole familes, think a couple of wives and tons of children) travelling. There was this family of three (presumably dad+mum+son) travelling with 9 suitcases (dad pushed 2 trolleys, using the back one to push the front, the son pushed 3 trolleys, one after another), and was stopped by a emirates-uniformed staff at the queue. Not sure what happened after that, though the staff was speaking really slowly to the man who didn't seemed to understand too much English.

It was our turn to check-in and I asked how full the flight was. He responded by saying "up to the very last seat". I didn't ask for our emergency exit seat requests this time, but the agent told us we were pre-allocated the very last pair of window seats at the end of the plane, which were popular seats going by the demand for them. I was pretty sure it was because of the load of the plane that the check-in agent was actually manually adding up the weight of the 3 bags that we were checking in. We hit 39.something and he didn't say a word, so it was all good. Before I left I popped the question "any chance of an upgrade tonight?" he gave me a smile and said "no i'm afraid. sorry mate" oh well, it was worth asking.

Found a nice couch still pre-airside and i slouched on it and had a restful 2 hours of sleep while my brother was watching a dvd on my laptop. Realised that the flight arrived early from Auckland and boarding will start 35 minutes before scheduled departure (from my prior experiences in Brissy boarding usually starts only 15 minutes before departure even for a Qantas 743), which probably meant we will take off on time. Went to clear immigration and when I walked underneath the metal detactor and it went off because of the metal buckle on my shoes, it almost felt like I murdered someone and is ambushed and trapped by the police when the bloody female security warden barked at me like a female dog "Dont move, come forward please!!!!! (I lifted up my jeans to expose the metal bucklers) Sit down and take your shoes off!!!!". Rudeness!!!!!!!!!!

After that whole episode we proceeded to the gate and the boarding call was made. Boarded the plane, usual greeting blah blah, sat down and the seats were actually so much more comfortable than the emergency exit, less the leg room. Heaps of shoulder and comfortable leg room for the two of us (we are both in the post 1.85m region).

What kinda' irked me was how the FAs actually stuffed their carry-ons and boxes and boxes of "cocktail snacks" in the last couple of overhead bins. It was fortunate that we were both carrying only two small sling bags and were able to squeeze them in the overheads, but those who boarded after us had a really bad time finding space for their stuff (that'll teach them to board late and carry on heaps and heaps of cabin bags). While boarding was completed prior to 2020hrs, we didn't manage to push back at that point because there was a thunderstorm and BNE simply refuse to use any form of telecommunications equipment on radio in fear of lightning strikes, so we waited, and waited, and the captain came on and said something along the lines of "well while we're waiting here it does appear like the thunderstorm dampened the revellers who went to the riverfire festival on the southbank". AWwww... My original plan was to stay till the next morning so that I could show my family the festival, good thing i didnt!

A gate agent came on the air not soon after and repeated at least 5 times about a black samsonite bag being left in the holding gate area. No one claimed ownership of it apparently, it was pretty daunting.

While the flight was taxiing, a small extremely minor argument broke out between two female FAs. FA 1 was seen carrying the J class amenty kits to J class, and FA 2 were attending to the mountain loads of passengers travelling with infants. Presumably FA 2 went all the way up to FA 1 in J class to ask where the infant seat belts were, FA2 was seen walking back and looking at Y class pax to ensure all have their seat belts fastened, and told FA1 that it is to the left at the back galley. FA2 went back and came out not soon after, and asked FA1 again where the seat belts were, and FA1 with a rather irritated facial expression animated a gesture to the left of the back galley, and continued checking the Y pax while FA2 walked back to the galley with a rather blurred expression on her face and mouthing "the left?". FA1 continued checking the Y pax (with the J class amenity kit in hand!!!!!) and yes, you guessed it, FA2 came back and gestured that she couldn't find it. FA1 pushed FA2 around and while FA2 was strolling really quickly down the aisle, FA1 was screaming (quietly) "YOU KNOW I HAVE A WHOLE CABIN OF ECONOMY CLASS TO GO THROUGH AND I HAVE TO TAKE OFF MATE!!!" FA1 came back with the infant seat belt and FA2 was no where to be seen until the point where they were told to prepare for take off.

An extremely looooooonnnnnnggg drink service began after take off (it took one hour), it was only 2 hours later that two trays of meals plonked on our seat tables. Meals of Chicken with fettucine or fish with rice was printed on the menu, and after 1/2 of the cabin have received their meals (we haven't), the purser came on and said that there's a misprint on the cards, that the chicken came with the rice while the fish with the noodles. *yawn* as expected by the time the FA reached 3 rows before us (we were on the last row) only the fish was left, which is ok because that was what we wanted. However, in the row in front of me, the FA offered the crew meal because the pax wouldn't take the veg or the fish. nice gesture of the FA. When we opened our aluminium foil on the entree it was fish, but with the rice. we were a little disappointed, because i really wanted the noodles and didn't care if it came with chook or nemo.

With about 4 hours left on the flight, I surprised myself that I actually managed to take a 3 hour nap on the plane. I do recall awaking a couple of times feeling reallllllly irritated with the limited space and worried about DVT a couple of times, but it was all good. Apparently they didn't serve the snack meal of either a chicken or beef sandwich. I was kinda' looking foward to it. It was printed on the menu!

Flight landed at ten past two in the morning, and was scheduled to carry onto dubai. Most pax were still sleeping and chose to remain on board for the one hour turnaround. Only a very small handful of pax disembarked in SIN. Cleared immigration in a matter of minutes and waited for about 2 mins for our bags to arrived.

Will I take Emirates again? Hmmm... I'll ponder on it for a little bit.

Nice report!

Thanks for the report, although when I think of Middle Eastern families I don't think 'two wives'. Although this is permitted in islam under certain circumstances and when certain conditions are met, in practice it is rare.

Please exercise some restraint with the quoting, did you really have to quote the entire report to make that brief comment?

Oh, and I agree, nice report! ^

Very descriptive report but I am surprised at the seating and at the attitudes of the FA's, I thought Emirates was supposed to one of the best in the air as well. Oh by the way the bum(bouncy, jiggling or firm) of th FA hitting you each time they passed by should have been fun not an inconvenience.

Hahaha I thought so too, except that I really wanted to sleep.. perhaps she was seeking my attention but really, I really doubt so.

Thanks for that comment fliar, but from what I understand, if there is a group of muslim ladies in black headscarf (tudung) covering their entire face, it's usually almost always the wives of the man accompanying them? There were at least 3 groups of them on this flights, granted there are other one-wife families as well. Big big impression, the tudung of such ladies are usually 'branded' ones, can't forget the one with VOGUE written all over one of them.

No, not necessarily. It is more than likely a bunch of friends or if there is a man present, probably sisters or other family. It is really rather rare.

Yeah, the branded ones are great!