forkandknife

Hello,

I am thinking of booking these flights, below on attachment, to Oz, surprise Miss Fork?

Do the planes look like they are the big ones, not the type that take you to the Med, they are pretty cramped you see? I am not really an expert on planes and there size in relation to there registration numbers.

Also, do the flights look ok, do-able for a novice international jetsetter?

Also, all you Queenslanders, what will the weather be like in June time, wet, OR wet and warm, OR wet, warm and humid, OR just humid?

Cheers

Bernieboy

Have you checked Singapore's prices ??

Bernieboy

Forget Singapore,the prices are eye watering

Pollyana

Registrations of aircraft have nothing at all to do with their size. Generally flights to Aus are in ones like A330 or Boeing 777 or 747 (commonly known as the jumbo jet) - all much larger than the majority of planes that do cross-Europe flights.

bcworld

Re the planes - the A330 is the worst plane Emirates have in terms of seating & in flight entertainment....i think there is another Birmingham flight on 777 try and get on that. The seating in the A330 is arranged in a 2-4-2 config.

On the 777 almost every other airline in the world has 9 seats across....somehow Emirates has squeezed in an extra one on theirs and the seats are arranged 3-4-3. The seats are narrow, but apparently there's only a tiny difference compared to other airlines...i think they got most of the space for the extra seat by shrinking the aisles which do seem very narrow.

Re the weather in Qld....assuming you're talking about Brisbane then you should expect dry, warm and not humid.....chilly evenings/nights (typically about 10C or so).....and also expect the unexpected!!

Luke I Amyofath

try here for seat sizes of the airlines:

http://www.seatguru.com/

Centurion

Emirates have the standard 32 inch seat pitch in cattle class. Only one airline flies to Australia with any better, thats Malaysian with 34 inches. Economy is crappy no matter who you fly with though really and I dont like Emirates much because of the stop in Dubai then again in Singapore when asian airlines fly direct via 1 stop. There are much worse airlines to fly though so you should be right.

As to weather here in June, only July is colder and frankly bring a jumper or two and jeans. Expect temps around the 20-21 degree mark so its basically cold as for most of us here. Nights are very cold and temps can drop to single figures and the bitching about lack of insulation and heating starts on BE.

So I don't know who was pulling your leg when they said it was warm. But heck its a darn sight better than the UK winter.

PS. We could only wish it was wet......welcome to the Australia, home of skippy, skin cancer and drought.

poshrice

hi i am flying from Sydney to Birmingham on the 5th of May and i have checked out the flights the seat pitch is 34" and the width is 17". when i flew out here 2 years ago we came with United and the pitch with them was 31" but same seat width and that was cool plus i was travelling with a 2 yr old this time will be going back with a 4 yr old so we shall see what it is like hopefully will be good as hubby is staying here so am on my own

poshrice

forkandknife

Cheers for the replies.

At least they are the jumbo size planes, i meant class of plane, not registration, late night, sorry! Seat pitch of 34" is fine.

The only reason i looked at Emirates was the locality to the Midlands (Birmingham), whereas Singapore, is local to London .i.e. Heathrow. Less travel miles.

The only other thing which is a point to take into consideration is booking the flights then getting there and deciding to stay longer, so having to move the flights. I think with Singapore it is free to move dates, so no charge, whereas Emirates do have a charge?

Cheers

A couple of quotes i found.

loubieloo

Hi,
When we went out to visit my parents in melbourne july 2006 we had to change our date to come back earlier than expected, emirates were fantastic and never charged us a penny we were told that if we needed to change them again they would charge us £100. we are going back to Australia with them again in on sept 18th Just out of curiosity is that the best flights you could get ? we are flying from Birmingham, leave bhx at 21:10 land in dubai 07:10 then leave dubai 10:10 landing in melbourne at 05:30, so that 7 hours to dubai and I think just over 13 hours to melbourne. Emirates have been fantastic we booked on-line then went to the airport the next day to get the tickets as I don't do e-tickets and we only live a few mins away from the airport.

HTH Louise

loubieloo

Doh just noticed you are going to brisbane we are planning a reccie for a week or so in brisbane when we get there will just hop on a internal flight

Louise

forkandknife

Hello Louise,

I cannot make my mind up, as to fly with Emirates or Singapore. I may stay up to 12 months you see, but will only book the flights for a three week stay, just to see how i get on first. So i may have to change the dates, and not to keen on paying out more cash, why should you, its only a couple of pressed buttons on the pc and an issue of a new bit of paper, when you change return dates? So if Singapore and Emirates do not charge then it is only the cost of flights, flight times and boarding point?

I prefer Birmingham, so Emirates there, costs are about the same around 800 quid, times are like for like, and not too fussed on Singapore stopover or Dubai, so i may just flip the coin?

But they are the best i could get last night.

loubieloo

I would e-mail emirates and ask them about a change of dates and how much they would charge, then it would be a case of working out the extra cost and time if you go with singapore from manchester/london or with emirates from birmingham, they were really good about my change of date but then i had a new date in mind and not just in the next 9 mnths
ooh just had a thought can you not book your return flight for the latest date you think you may want to return, then change it if you have to leave earlier

good luck and enjoy your trip

ex_exile

I find that 2-4-2 is actually a very good seating configuration, dont know about the entertainment on EK330's

Thai also have 34inch seat pitch, JAL have 33 and yes the extra inch does make a difference.

Generally not but Airbus did register an A380 as F-WXXL

bcworld

This I dont think you could so. Typically when you book an airline ticket it has a certain validity....often you'll see 30days, 3 months or 12 months....the longer the validity the more exe the ticket is. So if you book a 3 week ticket and its price is for a fare with 30day validity I think its very unlikely you would be able to make changes to return outside that 30day period FOC. If you want to potentially stay 12 months then you will probably need a fare with 12 months validity, or be prepared to upgrade your original fare, if the conditions allow it.