I do, I really do, understand that companies need to be cost conscious. However, those who make travel policy should at least be travellers and understand that if you force me to fly economy long distance I will spend a *lot* of time trying to get the smallest advantage when booking a trip to Bangalore. So, with no availability on the direct BA, I see the lowest cost option is Air India with a 10 hour layerover in Mumbai? Not going to happen. Shopping by schedule is key to avoiding that fate, but even so Air France keeps popping up and with no facility to pre-assign seats that isn't a runner either. Lufthansa looks like it may be ahead on points as I'm being offered a Premium Economy fare on the return leg, but on the outbound the only seats available are dead centre in the middle of the centre seats for the FRA-BLR flight. Nope, not going for that either. After a short dalliance with the idea of Edithad, some Emirates fares pop up. As these have window or aisle seating options, my Silver Status will give me access to the DXB lounge along with a couple of other perks and my Skywards miles a chance (however outside) in the grand upgrade lottery I finally settle on the DXB routing.
Unfortunately, the first flight in this routing was 9.40 from LGW and so, with memories of previous tailbacks at the Dartford crossing, an early start from St Ives was booked. As usual the incorporation of such contingency meant that we sailed over the bridge even before the toll became active and I was at the North Terminal at first kncckings. Determined (cf above) to use whatever I had to make my experience as comfortable as possible, with Silver card at hand I prepared to exploit the perk that I could use the Business Class check in - only to find that the Economy line was non existent whereas the Business Class line was a good few deep. Oh the conflict! Use status or be sensible? The latter won out, so Strike 1 for Silver Status.
After a short diversion into Duty Free for some Christmas gifts I was next targetting the No.1 Lounge courtesy of Priority Pass. Not at all bad, self service continental with bacon / or sausage baps to order. After eating I moved to the "work bench" to catch up on emails and boost the battery on my tired old laptop.
Flight status changed from "On time" to "Boarding" bang on the time printed on the boarding pass, so I then wandered off to locate the gate, where boarding was in full swing. There didn't appear to be any kind of priority lane for First / Business / Status members which seemed a bit odd (even though I was destined for the slow lane anyhow). Once through, there seemed to be some confusion about boarding. Some were wandering down the ramp, others hanging around. SHortly though my "zone" was called for boarding....along with First, Business, Skywards Platinum, Gold and....Silver...who could board at any time. Strike 2 for my Silver Status.
Remembering the organisational issues I had on my recent Turkish Airlines flight I took the time to make sure I had everything I needed close to hand, and anything else - together with my pullover and jacket - in the as yet empty overhead. Once settled, the legroom seemed fine, the seatback IFE working and all seemed well. Everyone boarded on time, but pushback was delayed as we had to be de-iced on stand. In the end we were away about 10 minutes late which seemed ok at the time, but with a tactical error in my choice of seat nearly led to an issue in Dubai.
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Anyway, that's yet to come. Even with a fully occupied row, there was decent wriggle and stretch room, not least as the seat fixings in front we spaced so that myself and my immediate neighbour had no fixing in front of us.
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When service started, the first order of the day was a drink. G&T from a miniature did the trick, and when its turn came around the food proved to be pretty good too. Chicken or lamb. I chose the lamb mughlai, and it proved tasty and not at all gloopy. They didn't seem to have coordinated the meal drinks with the meals themselves, and so it took quite a time to get a small bottle of reasonable wine.
Service itself was disappointing. Efficient but brusque to the point of being dismissive, once they had stepped past your row there was no chance of catching their eye to ask for some water (which I needed).
Likewise disappointing was the IFE. As a number here have noted before, ICE may boast many, many channels but once you strip away the world and region specific films, TV and radio you end up back with roughly the same number of offerings as on VS. The actual content was better than I remember it from our trip back from Australia this time last year, and I managed to take in "Frank" and "Jersey Boys" on this leg. The sound quality was dreadful, however, whether through my headphones or the airline supplied set. Fuzzy, and only on one channel. ICE does, however, feature external cameras which are good fun to watch on take off and landing.
As day turned to night there was a world outside to watch as we started out decent into Dubai. Lights all over the place - long before the city itself - some appearing to be up in the sky, which were actually presumably on a range of hills or mountains. Despite being assured that we had made up time, I'm pretty certain we did at least one circuit and were thus 5 or so minutes late to the gate.
Now this is where my tactical error in seat selection came in. With a relatively short connection - 1.5 hours - choosing a window seat at the back of the aircraft was not wise. It took some 20 minutes to exit the aircraft (by which time I had changed my seat allocation for the flight back into DXB to as far forward in the aisle as I could get) and once on the airbridge I realised I the chances of my supping a glass of something fizzy in the lounge were tending to zero as I still had to navigate security - strike 3 for Silver Status. After good direction from the Emirates ground staff - waiting in a row with clear directions for all connecting flights - power walking got me ahead of most of the crowd to the queue at security, where those of us toward the rear we were waved through by one of the staff.....into an even more crowded security area. By the time I navigated that obstacle, my target gate was showing final call and so I headed straight there with no chance to buy even a bottle of water, never mind anything more exotic.
At the gate itself there was no particular sign of urgency, but by that time I was stressed and perspiring for Britain. Again I realised my tactical error as I had to disturb two people to get to my seat and was further stressed by the fact that there didn't seem to be anywhere in the overheads to put my laptop and jacket. Luckily one of the young ladies who were sharing the row took pity on this overwrought englishman and said I should just cram the laptop in with her stuff.
On this leg, Emirates proved at least to be consistent. Decent food (Gosht biryani this time), indifferent service and only one sound channel working on the IFE, which kind of limited the appreciation of James Brown's music in "Get On Up". I would have liked to get up off that thang, but it wasn't going to happen.
Arrived in Bangalore pretty much on time - about 3am - and off the aircraft into a series of queues - Ebola statement, passport, security before luggage collection and then luggage collection itself - to be collected by the hotel's car service.
Overall, it was ok, and probably no worse than any other Economy flight but I thought the difference between the image and the substance in respect of EK service was marked. It was a different story on the way back
We can get better, because we're not dead yet
