bondipom

Emirates will be flying Sydney Dubai direct (over 14 hours) on the new airbus A340-500.

Pollyana

2 problems with that as far as I can see - one, its via Dubai, 2 its with Emirates! Once bitten, twice shy. I'd rather have the stop in SIN or HKG than there, anyday!!!

bondipom

I have not flown them. Mixed reviews. They lost Bundies undies (sorry could not resist that one) but BA have lost plenty of friends luggage.

debsy

Polly, after your previous comments on another post about Emirates I have changed my reservation. Plus the fact that their staff in their local Office were very rude and unhelpful!

We are now flying with Singapore.

Debs

OzTennis

We've flown Emirates 4 or 5 times - brilliant every time. Have also flown Singapore, Qantas, Cathay, Lauda and BA - all to Australia. Emirates gets our vote, but I can appreciate others may have had different experiences. You get stopovers in Dubai and Singapore, the best 2 airports in the world, nice food, fresher air than the above airlines and more leg room than most. Good news for us is that Emirates are starting Glasgow to Dubai in April next year so we won't have to trail down to Manchester to get a flight.

Incidentally Malaysian have a seat sale on at the moment - £549 Heathrow-Oz return. They didn't suit us because there is an additional fare to travel from Manchester or Glasgow.

OzTennis

debsy

OZ T

Oh well, never mind. Anyway, Singapore was 300 US dollars cheaper

The Singapore staff have been very good with the children on previous flights.

We are going straight through only stops in Dubai to take on passengers and then to changes planes in Singapore. We are on a tight schedule this time.

debs

debsy

OZ T
How do I get some details about the fresh air in cabins?

Debs

OzTennis

Debs

FWIW Singapore are in close equal second in OzT's airline of the year competition (with Lauda and Cathay). Now if only you could move those lovely Singapore girls to Emirates!

Try this:

Seat layout etc - http://www.seatexpert.com/

I think Alan Collett posted a couple of links to somegreat sites on cabin air quality and seat pitch. I printed them out for reference but didn't bookmark them. Try a search in this forum or in Immigration.

OzTennis

dugongs

emirates are middle of the pack for leg room - 32 inches - aa, air canada, air new zealand, air france all claim 34 inches.

fresher air claim seems a bit dubious as well.

singapore seems the best bet to me.

OzTennis

Do you follow me trying to be contradictory?

Emirates 33" (http://www.airlinequality.com/Produc...s_meafrica.htm)

Air Canada, Air France, American Airlines either don't fly or don't fly frequently to Oz so what's the relevance?

34" in economy is the largest seat pitch of the regular flyers to Oz (Air NZ, Malaysian and Thai).

30/31" is the smallest seat pitch - eg BA

Air quality claim is not dubious also - do some research.

OzTennis

debsy

Thanks Oz T.
Will check it out.

I am a bit concerned about the air quality as the last time we went to Oz, my daughter, then three caught a severe type of pneumonia and we almost lost her. The doctors at the time were convinced it was caused by germs she caught on the plane because of the air. In fact, I was wondering with all this fuji flu if she should wear a mask this time as I am terrified it will happen again.
Someone told me that you should dab tea tree under your nose - anyone heard for that??
Debs

OzTennis

Debs

Contrary to what someone else said, airlines have varying degrees of recycling air in the cabin (crew of course get fresher air). We once flew Singapore Airlines and due to an air traffic dispute in Europe, were late in taking off from Manchester. As a result we missed our connecting flight in Singapore and got put onto an Emirates flight. Immediately we got on the plane it was noticeable how much fresher and colder the air was compared to the SA flight we just had. I had never thought about it but subsequently found out that the fresher the air is in the cabin the more fuel is used - so some airlines recycle more than others. SA incidentally is better than many others in this respect. I think you can also demand a whiff of the oxygen bottle which is kept by law in each cabin if feeling deprived of fresh air.

I've seen people putting the dab of tea tree oil under the nose and doctors say it is a good idea. The best advice a doctor gave me (and it was mentioned in the days of SARS) is to take some of that hand wash stuff that allows you to disinfect your hands without the need for water. Using some of this before every meal and keeping hands away from mouth and nose is the best way of avoiding catching anything.

Good luck with your travels.

OzTennis

bundy

Just don't expect to get your luggage at the end of it...ours spent several hours sitting on the runway at Dubai before anyone from Emirates noticed.

And don't use Emirates if you have an aversion to pastel colours or easy listening music. Or you're a vegetarian.

bundy

Haa haaaaa haaaaaa! It's all true. Hence the now famous bikini incident.

Not keen to fly Emirates again.

Also, on seat pitch - yes, Emirates has more leg room (I'm 5'10" with abnormally long thigh bones) but they have this weird lumbar support thing in the seat which, far from being ergonomically correct is just downright uncomfortable. Plus the seats in front seem to come back a long way so the advantage of extra legroom is minimised.

When we flew in the last few weeks, the cabin was 'fumigated' with special spray on take off and landing (nobody told us the first time - we thought we were being gassed).

debsy

Thanks Oz T. I will defo. try the handwash stuff out. I used to do something similar with turkish Lemon cologne.