I was up pretty early and took the metro to Terminal 1 where I was assured by lonely planet that there would be a shuttle bus to Terminal 2- the cheapy terminal. I asked at Dnata and there was not. So I had to get a taxi. Lame. And they charge a 20 dirhams airport surcharge which was as much as the fare itself! Lame. I ended up paying in dollars as I had run out of Dirhams!
It was quite a long drive around as well- I would recommend anyone who is trying to keep the pennies tight and going to T2 to get the metro to 'Emirates' and then get the taxi- saving the 20 dhs surcharge and a bit of the fare.
I'd expected, from guidebooks etc, Terminal 2 to be a real sh**hole, but it was actually quite pleasant, if very basic- think Durham Tees Valley Airport and you are in the right sort of area. Had to show our tickets to a man before getting to the check in area and the Fly Dubai queue was long. thankfully, just as I was joining, a man opened up a new queue which I and some others dashed for, saving quite a lot of time. Total time was only 10 minutes or so in line but could have been a lot longer. The man directed me to the hand luggage only queue and a bloke who had hand luggage only arrived at the same time and went to the desk first. I was happy to let it slide as he did have hand luggage only but the man who had directed me came straight over and explained to the guy that he would have to wait. Security and immigration queues were short- shorter than T1 usually is. The terminal had a McDonalds, a fruit juice stand and a small duty free, and I chose to go to Costa.
The main carrier in Terminal 2 is fly dubai. With destinations such as Kabul and Tehran boarding the same time as us, there were few white faces.
Boarded on time via a bus and onto a very clean, new B737-800,. I took my seat and the CC asked me to move to an emergency exit row- without my asking! Plus I had the row to myself! Score! Opposite me was the only other white guy on the plane. The same happened when I flew jet star- the white people got moved to emergency exit rows. I'm not sure whether this is because white people are statistically taller, so the cabin crew think they need more legroom; or whether, on this flight which was mainly Nepalis, they assumed we were more likely to be experienced fliers, I don't know. But its nice to experience some positive discrimination after paying the 'foreigner tax' many places in Nepal's touristy towns!
Take off was pretty bumpy due to the dust storms but the flight was good. The captain, a young British guy, kept us updated a few times on the 3 hour flight and kept us informed about the turbulenece which was to be expected- but was only very mild in the end. The co-pilot (or whatever the right term is) also kept us updated. I'm always impressed by the amount of announcements from the cockpit on budget carriers- VS probably don't do it so much so as not to disturb the IFE.
Cabin crew gave everyone a complimentary water- after the first (for sale) drinks run of course. There were a few trolley runs but never felt like they were trying to over-sell. Cabin crew friendly to me but did seem a bit strict with many of the other pax.
Tailwind got us in early. On landing people were standing up to get their hand luggage from the bins before we'd even left the runway- never seen that before. Cabin crew dealt with this quickly and politely. Since most people on the flight were Nepalese then immigration queue was short.
All in all, excellent flight - and only 70 pounds. I'd certainly recommend them and will fly with them again if on their routes.
