My review of Emirates short-medium haul economy class flights. I flew the EK565 from Bengaluru, India (BLR) to Dubai International (DXB) and also the return leg (EK566).
Emirates is the largest operator of Boeing‘s long-haul flagship B777-300ER and the Airbus‘s A380-800 with 134 and 80 units of the two aircrafts respectively*. It has a massive order book of 50 Airbus A350-900s, 115 B777X and 30 B787 Dreamliners as well! As on 25th December 2019, Emirates flies to 161 destinations with its base of operation at Dubai International as focal point. What started out as an aspiration of Dubai’s ruling family to have a flag carrier for its emirate, today is arguably amongst the finest, safest and punctual airlines in the world!
Seat Map:
The EK565 is a 04 Hr flight from Bengaluru’s KIAL to Dubai International and the aircraft used is the B773ER. Seating is a 2 class configuration: 42 Business Class seats in the 2-3-2 layout (4 seats with direct aisle access) and 385 Economy Class seats in the standard 10-abreast 3-4-3 layout. The first row immediately aft of the bulk-head partitions have bassinets for nursing mothers. These would be row #1 in business class and rows 8, 23 and 37 in the economy class.
Comfort:
Seats in the economy class are 17″ wide and come with a 32″ pitch. In comparison, the angular-flat business class seats are 20.5″ wide and come with almost double the amount of pitch at 60″. Nevertheless, don’t let the numbers bother you. These are by far, the best set of airline seats I’ve been on! Which was the #1? Guess what, it is Air India 777-300ER – on the 2nd leg from Bangalore –Toronto Pearson via New Delhi! With so much bad press and sentiments around Air India’s never-on-time performance, it has arguably the best seats in the sky for economy/coach/cattle class! For comparison, I’ve flown Air Canada, Qatar, Etihad, Singapore Airlines and Qantas in economy and I can still vouch for Air India, especially the ample amounts of leg-room on offer. I am 5’7″ (171 cm) and I had plenty of leg-room on the Emirates 773. In comparison, when I asked my co-passenger – an Irish-Australian, who was 6’3″, weighing 220+lbs easily – he too was of the same opinion. Guess what, he has also flown economy in the above airlines and had similar, if not same views! So, case settled and I’ll give Emirates economy seats a 7.5/10 for seat comfort.
ICE: Information, Communication & Entertainment
Emirates has the best in-flight entertainment system in the world. Period. Each seat has an individual entertainment screen, that has the best resolution + viewing angles and is bright enough to be read even in direct sunlight. The best feature is the geo-spatial airline positioning system a.k.a. the Moving Map! and the 3 position outside cameras which gives you the view outside and is best used during landing/take-offs. It brings the child in each one of us and is Absolutely Magical! Entertainment you ask? With nearly 2000 movie titles across Action, Rom-Com, Documentary including latest releases in Hollywood, Bollywood, Korean entertainment industries, you don’t (can’t) get much to complain. If you still don’t like You can play the content of your choice using the USB Port. Wired, over-the-ear audio headsets provided sound decent- Now you can’t expect a noise cancelling system in Economy, can you? 😉 If you have your own, feel free to plug-it-into the 3.5 mm jack. The remote control doubles up as Gaming Joystick as well a wired-telephone headset. A unique feature is the Live Radio, which gives you loads of Info about the latest updates on Dubai, the Emirates Airline and many more. A Universal Power Socket is present up-front and can easily accommodate a universal charger dock, thus enabling multiple devices – such as a Laptop, Phone, Camera and mobile battery packs – charge simultaneously. Overall, I give it a very strong score of 9.5/10.
Dining:
We were served a round of fruit juice (in Tetra Pak cartons) and Tea/Coffee/Water just 15min into the flight . Lunch service was started An hour and half past take-off. Passengers with dietary restrictions (vegan/vegetarian/special-meals) were the first ones to be served. Lunch/Dinner + B/F menu in regional language! What a tremendous feat of marketing genius was this? The first time I was handed a copy of food menu – about 1.5yrs ago -, I was bubbling with joy to read the same in Kannada, my regional language in Bengaluru, India. My friends who have flown Emirates from #Chennai and #Hyderabad have also received the menu in #Tamil and #Telugu. the other, major vernaculars from India. My only issue with this is the obvious waste of paper! We could have the menu displayed on screen, possibly make it interactive with a granny coming over the headphones explaining the delicacies on offer! Nevertheless, the food was well cooked (veggies), delicious, right portion size and non-greasy. Yes, I am a vegetarian and had pre-ordered Vegetarian Meal (VGML) at the time of booking my tickets. While there was no cap on the amount of complimentary fruit juice/water/soda, I am not sure about the same for alcoholic beverages. However, the service cart had enough stockings of Beer, Wines (Red & White), Whiskey and Gin. An array of baby food/formula and milk are also stocked. I couldn’t quite tell if this was Airline food, but for the portion of rice, which was a little under-cooked. Overall, I liked the dining options and would give it a very good score of 8/10. Well done, Emirates.
Additional Links and Info:
Luggage: Emirates allows a cabin/carry-on baggage allowance of 7 Kilos and checked-in capacity of 23 Kilos, thus a combined capacity of 30 Kilos. This is specific to India and may vary from country/region of origin. Please read the Emirates Baggage Policy on their website OR call the nearest office for updated info on the same.
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Love and Warm Regards, The Coastal Traveller
TheCoastalTraveller 