Emirates or Ethiad to Dubai?

cottager83

Folks, thinking of going to Dubai but dont know whether to go with Emirates or Ethiad? both fly direct from Dublin and Emirates are about 100e dearer. However with Ethiad, you have to get a bus transfer from the airport for over an hour. Any replies appreciated. Thanks

Northern Monkey

I flew with Emirates but it was out of London rather than Dublin. It actually worked out cheaper to fly to London and get the flight from there (it also had the bonus of flying on the A380:D)

The service on board was top notch, but I'd imagine Ethiad would be just as good.

Edit: Should also say, I've flew to Dubai with Qatar as well and found Emirates better.

veetwin

Emirates will shortly be using the Boeing 777 on the DUB-DXB route. Many posters have complained that the cabin in economy is very cramped with 10 seats across. However I've also heard of people not being hugely impressed with Etihad's service. On balance I would probably go with the cheapest.

spank_inferno

We found Etihad very good.

The bus transfer is fine, By then your exhausted so you'll probably spend the hour sleeping.
It will drop you at a designated hotel in Dubai, the Cabbies are aware of the drops so there is usually plenty of cabs around to bring people the last leg of their journey.

We found it fine & as we arrived in the morning our hotel room would not have been ready for an earlier arrival anyway.

cottager83

Thanks for the replies folks, will prob go with the cheaper option so if the transfer is grand. Any idea if flights wil go up/down between ere and the summer?

Nyberg

It would depend on where in Dubai you are staying. The transfer from Dubai airport to the Jumeriah Beach area can be up to 1 hour depending on traffic etc. Whereas the transfer to city hotels is much less.

The opposite applies to Abu Dhabi, we usually get our hotel to pick us up, it takes approx 1 hr transfer to Jumeriah beach area, which is on the Abu Dhabi side Dubai. Motorway the whole way. Again it could take up to two hours if you are staying in the city, the Sheikh Zayed Road is the problem, at rush hour (lasts about 3 hours) you could be sitting for an hour.

Both are spot on to fly with.

Hope this helps

xxshirlxx

I only have experience with Ethiad and loved them.. Flew with them the whole way to oz and back.. stop over in Abu Dhabai.. they were top class.. couldnt fault one bit.. my dad goes to thailand every year and wont fly with anyone else.. brilliant! and the cheapest.. cant go wrong..

dingding

Also have a look at turkish airways via Istanbul.

Should be a bit cheaper.

Stinicker

Just before I begin let I point out to the OP, Emirates fly to Dubai, Etihad fly to Abu Dhabi, both are different airlines flying to different cities within the same country; the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E)

Well my experience is having flown with both Etihad and Emirates is that they are both good airlines. (Etihad brill, Emirates so so) however Etihad wins for me. I just flew back to Ireland yesterday with Emirates and it was not a good experience.

Last year I flew Etihad from Heathrow on the A340-600 (2-4-2 seat config) to Abu-Dhabi and onwards to Bangkok on the Boeing 777-300 (3-3-3 seat config) and on both planes I had enough legroom and the seat pitch was good and everything was fine onboard. Abu Dhabi airport was not overly busy and the transfer was a smooth and easy process, going through security took about 5mins and I had two hours layover on both occasions. A perfectly good and acceptable flight experience plus the VOD inflight entertainment on both planes is great.

This year I flew Emirates from Dublin to Dubai on the A330 which is (2-4-2 seat config) also and the legroom is ok for me, the VOD was a disaster with a tiny screen with a fuzzy picture and it is streamed and not on demand. This is changing to the 777 soon. I was supposed to fly on the A380 to Kuala Lumpur but it was swapped to the 777 last minute. see here

Emirates 777 is (3-4-3) and the legroom is tiny and seat pitch poor and it is so cramped compared to Etihads 777 which has more legroom and pitch, legroom is number one for me and there is a serious shortage of this on Emirates 777's, the aisles are so narrow also and it is a cramped overall horrible flight experieince which I had to endure for 8hrs.

Emirates 777 service is a very Ryanairesque experience, not that I should criticise Ryanair after experieincing the granddaddy of sardine can flying AirAsia, unless your a small asian or child your knees will be buried in someones back with them, I'm 5ft 9' only and not some big guy either.

So Etihad are winning on the aircraft front, now however lets focus on airports for a second, Abu Dhabi is not overly busy and transfers are easy and security were humane, not rushed and did their job effectively without being tyrannical.

Flying into and out of Dubai airport is stressful and whilst I often criticise Heathrow, Dubai at peak times is far worse. My flight from Bangkok to Dubai was delayed by 1hour and when you fly the A380 I would never expect it to depart on time, there is too many people and the ground crew in Bangkok held no order and it became a mad scramble and add on each passenger carrying enough handluggage for a small army you can imagine the sort of scene, the A380 is just a whale for the masses, tonnes of people.

So we left 1 hour late and I can't fault the A380 as it is the king for legroom and space onboard, and I happily hunkered down for a few hours sleep which I got on the A380 as I rarely can sleep on planes. I skipped the meals onboard.

We were circling Dubai for 20mins before landing and this delayed me more and I got off the plane at 06.10 with my Dublin departure due to go at 7.00 and I rushed off the plane and then nearly wet my pants with fright when I went up the stairs, what greeted me was around 5,000 people trying to get through 7 x-ray machines.

There was no queueing system with those pullout belts to form orderly queues and some people were skipping it and there was some verbal exchanges between irate, tired and angry passengers, add to this every second ejit had to be scanned twice and there was a lot of newbies to flying in this queue from developing countries who did not seem to know the drill so well as I did.

At 6.50 after 45mins of queuing I eventually cleared security, no need to remove laptop either. The screen read: Dublin 07:00 gate closed, but I saw a few lads far behind me with GAA jerseys so I figured they might hold the plane so I made another mad rush to the gate which took another 5mins reaching it at 6.55 where through some miracle the flight had not departed, they held it for 15mins afterwards and even the GAA jersey lads made it. It was an extremely stressful event, I was awake at this stage at least 24hrs and it was not a pleasant experience.

So basically to sum it up, fly Etihad and you will have legroom and a pleasant airport transfer at Abu Dhabi with minimal delays.

Fly Emirates and if you fly the 777 you will be like sardines and hit the wrong time in Dubai airport and you could miss your connection so allow for a 1hr delay if on the A380 (they are always delayed) and 2hrs at Dubai airport to clear security to give yourself some time if you want to take a shower, eat or buy duty free, all I had was a mad scramble between planes. You need a minimum of 3hrs between flights at Dubai to give yourself time and allow for delays, flying to Australia or somewhere really longhaul this is adding to what is already a longtrip.

For me flying Emirates again will only be determined if they are alot cheaper than everyone else, I would certainly not pay more for what is a worse product. I won't fly them from Dublin again due to their 777 but would consider flying to Heathrow for the A380 service and A380 onwards again just allow lots of time for delays.

With Malaysian and Thai Airways both getting the A380 this year, and with Qantas and Singapore also flying them, there is lots of choice and one of the few redeeming features of Emirates is their 30kgs allowance and sometimes their prices.

Sober Lark

I have flown extensively so although this was my first experience flying with Emirates I do understand that sometimes things do go wrong. One month later I can say with all sincerity that I have never experienced such poor customer service.

We booked our flights with Emirates to take our family of five to Sri Lanka over the Easter (2012) break.

Our flight departed Dublin for Dubai on 30/03/2012 - a flight time of a little under 8 hours. Because of adverse weather on approach into Dubai our captain choose to divert to Ras Al Khaimah.

What a nightmare. Its a big enough airport and its only 70 km from Dubai but when we landed they had no passenger management facilities, no airport facilities, no crew replacement ability facilities, no technical facilities (you'd have imagined a technical problem would have been picked up by routine maintenance) or other commercial facilities.

We were left on the aircraft over night for 10 hours with bread sandwiches and water offered. With broken air conditioning and broken toilets.

Other Emirates aircraft that evening of which I know of 5 were diverted to other local airports with proper facilities in the region and all were refuelled within an hour and returned to Dubai.

What happened our Emirates flight and her choice of diversion airport cannot be considered 'extraordinary circumstances or 'force major' - yes they use these words when they want to get out of paying compensation.

We eventually landed in Dubai twenty one and a half hours after leaving Dublin but the bad customer service didn't end there.

They had us queue up for another 5 hours trying to put us on other flights. We realised the purpose of our original travel plan was no longer attainable and we abandoned our holiday and were to be put on the next available flight back to Dublin. That was bank holiday Monday.

We were not given breakfast or lunch and only offered us a food voucher for a coffee and pizza and 16:00 on the Saturday.

Our trouble wasn't over. At 19:00 Sat, they put us up in a nearby 3 star hotel where they gave us two double beds for five of us. The room had a view out over a grave yard. Emirates also managed to loose our baggage.

Next day (Sunday) we were told our baggage would be with us by noon. It never arrived. We phoned and after waiting until 1pm we abandoned hope of ever getting service from Emirates and went to see Dubai because we had 6 hours to spare.

When we got back at 19:00 our bags had arrived so we washed and changed our cloths and slept early because we had to be up at 04:30 for check in.

On the Emirates flight back my wife was sitting next to a mother with a young child and each time she wanted to feed the baby the cabin crew politely asked my wife if she wouldn't mind going to the jump seat at the back of the aircraft whilst the mother breastfed her baby.

We arrived back home in Dublin on Monday seventy seven hours after we left. You can imagine we missed a holiday, money lost due to cancellations, visas etc.

I'm currently waiting for Margaret Shannon, Paul Holland and Bruce Forbes of Emirates reply to my letter of complaint but it is a month now.

How can an airline such as Emirates have won so many awards? Perhaps I'm being a bit too soft but perhaps we were just very very unlucky to have such a combination of so many things going wrong. Yet couldn't someone along the line in Emirates have had the ability to spot what a family of two adults and three children were going through and take charge to look after us?

Failing the courtesy of a proper reply to my written complaint I may just have to go down the legal route and see what protection regulations such as the Montreal Convention Articles 19 & 22 will offer us?

I have flown Emirates and wouldn't recommend them. The attraction is a one stop service to OZ etc but forget it. When things go wrong they won't want to know. You can be the calm and professional about it but to no avail. I have a Silver frequent flyer status with Etihad and gold with Singapore Airlines and I've in all the years of frequent flying never had the bad experience that I've had with Emirates.

Your choice from Dublin is Etihad. Two flights most days, and if on business, a dedicated business lounge.

In passing I'd be happy for any moderator to contact me to ascertain the accuracy of my posting.

delricyo

Firstly, I havent flown with Etihad so this will be a one sided opinion based on Emirates (EM)

2 years ago, I flew with EM from London to Mauritius via Dubai. It was just after the ash cloud so I was expecting chaos in LHR and DXB. But I think I got away lightly. I didnt experience the queues that others mentioned above. LHR was a bit messy but then again it always is !

My transfer at DXB was seamless. I was surprised how straightforward it was. Through security in 5 minutes, and on to the window shopping in the airport !!

To be honest, I always look at flights from LHR if I am flying long haul. Much more choice of airlines. And you might be lucky enough to get on the A380 if flying EM from LHR. This is a great aircraft. Downstairs in Eco, you have the impression that the cabin is more spacious. One of the reasons for this is the fact that the walls are almost vertical as there are 2 floors. The legroom is great @ 34 inches and the seat width is good too. So try and get on the A380 !

Be very aware of the 777 ! When I saw that EM were flying this from Dublin, I was disappointed. Eg, Malaysian Airlines seat people 2-5-2 on their 777's. EM seat 3-4-3. Thats an extra seat they squeeze in. You feel this as soon as you sit down. Afaik, it is narrower than Aer Lingus. I was lucky enough to have a full row to myself on the 777. So as soon as the seatbelt light was off - it was up with the armrests and off to sleep.

Thats just my experience with EM. My op would be to go via London or via Etihad

But many have flown with Emirates and have had a great experience