Pat14

Just wanted to know how good emirates are to fly, with bearing in mind we are traveling with a 6 year old and 2 year old?

Centurion

As good as any other airline really. They seem to have some mystical status on this board which imo is undeserved and I can only put it down to some people never having travelled on other airlines to Australia. They also have the advantage of not just operating out of LHR so appeal to those in the midlands of the UK etc.

The equipment they use is aging, rubbishy entertainment system, the service usually good, but as a product there is much better out there. Malaysian airlines for example, 34" seat pitch instead of 32" in economy. Singapore consistent product and service of a high calibre.

That said, there are a lot worse out there and I used them for one year about three times because they were just so competitive with fares compared to others.

Wouldn't be my first airline of choice anymore but you'll be right flying them.

Pat14

Thanks for the info on emirates i know that it mostly down to your personal experiance with an airline on how people rate them we have never flew to oz before did look at other airlines but they did come up with best price for us.I shall give the board my view in july when we get back home lol cheers

sassie

Hi , we flew with them last year, and we found them to be very good. We chose Emirates specifically because they flew out of Gatwick and also we found 3 x 7 hour sectors was a lot better than 12-14 hours straight. The last poster mentioned rubbishy entertainment system, I should mention that Emirates are in the process of installing the state of the art IFE (in flight entertainment) called ICE. Check it on their website. At the moment, its only installed on some of their aircraft and mainly on the London-Dubai routes.

louie

Well I thought they were pretty good and the entertainment system was excellent. I think this depends on the airplane you are on though but you can check what facilities your flight has from their website. And they are the only airline flying to Oz from Gatwick which suited us. Oh and good value too. Considerably better than BA/Qantas which whom we flew the previous year.

Grayling

That depends on where you are flying to.

Many Emirates flights to Melbourne and Sydney fly direct from Dubai which makes them 13 hour flights.

G

Pat14

We fly from heathrow to brisbane the vibe im getting from you all is pretty good and that is a relief as we have only flew with virgin before and they were very good to us, so we shall see how we get on. Thanks

bcworld

I flew Emirates from Brisbane to Glasgow and back last October.

I've been long haul on plenty of other airlines and the outbound flight was the best I've had. That's in terms of food, entertainment, service etc. What I don't like is the number of seats they pack in. Emirates (on their 777s) have 10 seats across...almost every other airline is 9...the plane is no wider so go figure.

That being said the return leg was distinctly average, mainly due to the crew onboard.

As others have said the ICE entertainment system is the best around. BNE used to get an older plane with the older entertainment system but that has now been upgraded.

Pisces

I lived in Dubai for 11 years so haved travelled with Emirates a lot, at least once a year. My children have flown with them since they were 3 months old and we have only had good service. The ICE entertainment system is great, especially now that my eldest is 8 years old, keeps them entertained from about the age of 2. They come around with gift packs for children before take off and if you have a baby the gift pack will include nappies, wipes and a soft toy and even bottled baby food. On one flight the attendants took our 6 month old daughter away for a walk around and came back with a photo of her in a little carboard frame with her wearing the emirates hat and scarf.
No complaints from us.

Nu-Shooz

I think they are the best i have flown with. Plenty of room, plenty of food and drinks, quite comfy, quite expensive but still the best.

louie

You have a choice of flying via Bangkok if you go to Sydney (probably Melbourne too but I'm not sure). We chose to do that without a stopover and found that the night flight to Dubai, day flight to Bangkok and night flight to Sydney really helped to reset your body clock. Yes it makes the journey longer overall but we had no jetlag at all and I'd do it that way again.

louie

Oh and we saved a whole £20 doing it that way!

One other good point about Emirates if you are expecting to do more than one trip to Oz is that if you register for their frequent flyer scheme and book online, with the bonus points you get for your first flight you get nearly enough points from one flight to Oz to update to business for the UK - Dubai sector next time and you can buy extra ones to make up the difference.

Jasonmb

We flew with them on the 3rd April, via Dubai to Melbourne, with a 16, 11 and a 7 year old. No complaints what so ever, in fact if I were going to complain it would be about the amount of times they tried to feed us from Dubai to Melbourne, they came round 4 times, I don't eat 4 times, in 24 hours let alone 13. They came round with drinks regulalry, and the entertainment kept the kids happy for hours, we would definitley recommend.

Tracy

philnorris

I have to say I love Emirates, having used QANTAS and BA on many long haul flights I felt as though I had slightly more leg room with Emirates, the staff seemed more cheerful and the food just as good as any other airline.

I will keep using them from now on for the good service, well that and cos they now fly to Perth from Newcastle

travelbug

We flew with Emirates in November with a 4 year old and 11month old. They were to us pretty average to fly with. Have definitely flown with better airlines.
One thing i would suggest if you've got kids is to make sure you have some food they enjoy in your handluggage for them. We thought the kids meals were awful....
Our daughter existed for the whole journey on the kids "goody" bag that had just chocolate/pringles etc in it - both she (and my OH who normally woofs down airline dinners) turned their nose up at their kids meal....as for our 11month old - he couldnt eat the crisps etc or the kids meal - so we were glad we'd packed a couple of suitable things that he liked.
Emirates also lost our buggy and it took us 4 days to be reunited with it - they forgot at the gate at Gatwick to load it on the plane.... We were loaned one at Perth airport but it was awful and ended up buying one for about $80 just to tide us over till we got our own one back.
We booked them last year because we preferred to fly from Gatwick rather than Heathrow...and at the time we went they were offering the cheapest deals.