kulu

Can anyone recommend flying Emirates? We've been quoted roughly 550GBP per person to fly Heathrow to South Africa (stopping there for 2 weeks) and then on to Brisbane. Sounds like a good deal.

SunshineGirl

I've flown Emirates to Thailand and they were very good.

We're booked to fly again with them to Oz next year.

GARY C

Hi

I have flown with Emirates twice and they were great. I am flying with them again to Brisbane on Saturday. Even with low prices the flight is excelent

Regards
Gary C

OzTennis

I've flown Emirates 5 or 6 times to Oz and like the others would thoroughly recommend them. Excellent food, service, legroom, cabin air, duty free shopping at Dubai. No qualms whatsoever!
OzTennis

piers_morgan

That sounds like a wonderful quote - what date is that for?

jjj

Hi kulu
Do you get the extra luggage allowance? We are hoping to take the same route as you, just to Adelaide instead, I was expecting to have to pay more than the price you were quoted - where in RSA are you flying to? When was the price for and is that booking direct with Emirates?

Thanx for the info

bundy

Flew to Brisbane with them last November.....

I know lots of people love them, but we made the following 'observations':

Extremely salty food! In fact, too salty to eat on all legs except Bris-Sing on the way back.

Personally didn't find the service that good - some of the cabin crew were very shirty when I asked for water during the night.

Incredibly uncomfortable seats - the legroom was ok, but the so-called lumbar support was less than supportive!

Total chaos at Dubai when everyone was offloaded to switch to flights to Syd, Bris etc.....lots of misinformation given, several people missed their flights or tried to get on the wrong connections.

These are minor gripes, nothing serious and you get them on all carriers.

However, our main complaint - they lost our luggage on the way back. Or, rather, they left it sitting on the runway at Dubai for a couple of days. Apparently this happens a lot, especially on the Brisbane route, so much so that it's a bit of a standing joke. Tell that to the poor family who had 'lost' their luggage on the way and on the way back and had thus spent most of their 3 weeks in Oz, and their return to the UK, chasing their luggage. Emirates didn't want to know when it came to lost luggage - no apology, no Emirates rep to meet us at the baggage carousel to save us waiting forlornly for 45 minutes for bags that would never come. We were lucky - we had relatives near Gatwick to stay with. Others were told that they would have to come back to Gatwick a couple of days later, many would have to stay in a hotel at their own expense, or they would have to pay to get their stuff couriered to them (if they lived outside the M25).

Letters written to Emirates went unanswered and telephone calls to their customer services dept were, shall we say, lacking in customer care.

It's because of this experience with the baggage that we will never fly Emirates again.

Right, rant over!

kulu

That was for 21st of November with a two week stop in South Africa. Arriving in Brisbane on the 7th of December.

vickeyvixen

Hiya

We flew Emirates in August when we came over to Melbourne via a 3 day stop in Singapore. The flights were really good. Food great, plenty of it and lots to drink. Seats were fine and the entertainment kept the children quiet for hours !!

One slight hiccup they managed to misplace our Singapore case for 2 days. They did give us $90 and bought the case to the hotel when it re appeared from Auckland !!

I would recommend them and will certainly use them again without a doubt.

Vickeyvixen

kulu

Hi JJJ,

Not sure about baggage allowance yet. We're heading to Jo'burg to see my family and then down to KZN for a few days to see more family. Good way to acclimatise to the heat before heading to Oz.

bundy

By the way, got so carried away with my ranting that I forgot to say that you've been offered a very good price.

The flight between Africa and Australia is the longest over-sea (in the literal sense) flight you can do. Hours of flying over oceans with no chance to set-down and re-fuel. This makes it one of the most expensive sectors too, from what I was told when I flew Sydney-Zimbabwe a few years back. That sector bumped up the price of me RTW ticket by a few hundred pounds.

walla

We flew Emirates last year, no complaints, in fact were very good, cheap too. So I recommend them.

Walla

Pollyana

Must say I agree with Bundy; I flew with them a couple of years ago.Got treated appalling start to finish - as a white woman travelling alone, apparently I came bottom of the pecking order.
Food and service on board were appalling, and the aircraft had tech problems in Dubai on the way out - resulting in us being stranded for 9 hours overnight, with no offer of food or drink and no explanations from the airline except "wait a bit longer". No help given to contact people waiting in Oz, and as we were all about to miss connections from Singapore to Oz a bit of help would've been handy.
This was in the days of the old airport so conditions there may be better now, but at the time it was the dirtiest airport I'd ever seen, and by far the unfriendliest.
Would never use them - or any Arabic airline again from choice -

Anyone with time to spare listening to other rants about Emirates......

http://www.geocities.com/soho/cafe/9653/emirates.html

bundy

Actually, part of the new building at Dubai fell down earlier today.......wasn't open, still being built.

But yes, the new airport at Dubai is lovely. Still not worth flying Emirates for though (IMHO).

Pollyana

No, I don't even look at their offers since that trip. Not had any letter back from the airline with an apology either.
One of the worst bits was that it was 9 hours overnight and because of the rebuilding of the airport, and the country being dry, there were no bars - I understand there are bars in the new bit. However there was a duty free shop with very large cheap bottles of Martini......... I seemed to spend a lot of time dragging all my luggage into the loo, complete with purchases from shop.........