Emirates A380 Economy Review - Dubai to Gatwick - EK9
- Sam
- Jun 13
- 9 min read
Updated: Sep 4
This flight was part two of our journey back from Singapore to London, having found a bargain fare of only £297 each one way, we decided to fly with Emirates. Find our part one review of that flight here on Emirates' Boeing 777 (spoiler, it was rather lacklustre). This is our part two review onboard the Emirates A380 in Economy.
Booking
To recap in case you missed part one, points are always front of our mind when booking trips. This holiday was booked about a month in advance, and while looking at our options for getting back to London, we found an absolute steal of a deal, paying only £297 each. Whilst we are points first advocates, we are all about smart money, and this fare just made sense.
This fare included a bag, but no seat selection. As we booked one way departing Singapore, we paid for this ticket in Singapore Dollars. To get the best exchange rate and points for our money, we used a Hilton Honors Plus debit card, getting us 3 Hilton Honors point per £1 spent, thus netting us 1,782 Hilton Honors points.
The Hoarding Process (Yes, I Did Mean That)
We only had around an hour to make our connection in Dubai, but even though we had to change terminals, the people mover shuttles underneath the airport made that process a breeze. We got to the gate, and with the boards showing "Boarding Now", we scanned through the barriers, down the escalator to the jet bridges, lo and behold there is a huge mass of people waiting for boarding to begin.
This might be a good time to mention the type of A380 we were on. Rather rare in Emirates' fleet, this A380 is in a two class configuration, with just Economy and Business.
This two cabin configuration obviously means more people, by getting rid of one First Class suite you can have around nine Economy seats. For reference, the lowest capacity Emirates A380 has 468 seats. The variant we were on is the highest capacity in Emirates' fleet with 615 seats onboard.
The Cabin
We made our way to our seats, 46H and 46K, in the nose on the lower deck. As first impressions go, this was miles better than the Boeing 777 we had just left behind. The space was airy and spacious, with a much better finish to the cabin. Out was the dated cabin walls that have more in common with a 90's sports centre, and in comes clean white walls, with the classic Emirates window frame. No need to reinvent the wheel. The seat itself featured the same smorgasbord/"hard to notice a stain" of colours. Sat in the seat itself you instantly noticed a couple of things. First off, about an inch extra legroom, and secondly, an inch of extra seat width. This doesn't sound like much, but when you can feel incredibly hemmed in whilst flying Economy, this extra space feels like an acre.
A welcome improvement was the IFE screen. Gone is the small, dingy capacitive touchscreen on the 777. This screen is crisp, bright, and an impressive size of 13.3". Underneath the screen you'll find a remote, USB-A port suitable for charging, and a universal power outlet.
The A380 is a wonderfully large aircraft, and as the fuselage contours differently compared to a normal single decker plane, it results in excess space where there otherwise wouldn't be any. On the upper deck, this means that Economy is a 2-4-2 configuration, where the window passengers get a storage compartment to their side. On the lower deck, there is this cavernous space in between the seats and the windows. Not big enough to fit anything, but it does help the person in the window seat shimmy over to give the middle seat a bit more width, as any good flyer knows, middle seat gets both arm rests.
There are two things to note being sat in the nose of the A380. Firstly, there are three bathrooms at the front of the cabin (Not two according to Aerolopa). So if you're someone who needs to use the facilities frequently, this ones for you. Secondly, the overhead bins are compromised somewhat. With the stairs protruding, and the cabin bending in, this results in smaller bins, or a reduced amount of bins in the middle. This flight was sold out, and so bag space was at a premium. Luckily we found space for our bags, but for those passengers who joined us late, they were having to put their luggage in the overheads of the cabins behind us.
As Helena mentioned in her review on the Emirates 777, it's really rather heartening seeing crew handing out toys, and taking Polaroids for children to take away as a memento of their trip, a very nice touch.
We were delayed around 40 minutes for "operational reasons". The crew never fully divulged as to why, but my suspicions were aroused when the plane was maybe 4/5ths full post boarding, considering that this flight was sold out. This delay seemed to be to allow other passengers who were connecting to be able to make this flight. As our original departure time came and went, more passengers trickled in. The last passenger boarded, and proceeded to berate the crew that despite being an Emirates Gold member, he was sat in the rear of the plane, hardly the crews fault. If you read Helena's flying pet peeves (see here), you may remember this passenger as the one who removes his dentures to the crew.
Pushing back 38 minutes late, Emirates' no-nonsense safety video played (Kevin Hart still haunts me from Qatar Airways' video). A few minutes later, we were in the air.
Once in the air I did what I usually do, use the moving map to see where we might be flying over, and this is where my fun starts. I click onto the moving map, which runs Panasonic's Voyager 3D map, and my screen crashes. First came the red screen of death indicating reboot.
Then came this polite screen. Clearly the system is trying to reboot.
Lastly, an Android boot screen for the system. This last screen though would not progress, leaving me in IFE limbo. This screen was on for around 10 minutes before I sought help from the crew. It must be noted though, that to use the call bell function you need to use the remote, which was stuck in boot mode... I instead had to press the small light above my head, this was not a call bell button, but the small light that cabin crew use to acknowledge the call bell.
The reset of my screen took 15 minutes, though not the crews fault, this is just the length of time the reboot takes.
Out of curiosity, I wanted to see if it was the IFE system that was faulty, or was it the moving map that triggered the crash. Navigating the films and tv shows was no problem for the system, so naturally I went back to the moving map, annnnnnnnnnnnnd, BOOM, it crashes. Repeat everything written above.
So now I at least know not to use the moving map, lesson learned. But this whole escapade with this issue lasted around 45 minutes. Blame me for using the moving map the second time? Absolutely. But should this be an issue? Absolutely not.
With the IFE back up and running I settled in for the rest of the flight. Emirates' IFE is one of, if not the best systems in terms of choice. The sheer quantity, over 6,500 titles, means that whatever your mood, they have something for you. But for this flight the true entertainment was out of the window.
An hour into the flight, flying over Iran we flew over the most incredible salt lake. Maharlu Lake, near Shiraz, is red due to the Red Tide algae found in the lake, but it makes for an almost discomforting, hellish experience flying over.
The Food
After our meals from Singapore on the 777, we knew one thing was certain, I'd be leaving this flight in a sugar coma. The Middle Eastern airlines do take their economy food seriously. From the quantity, to the flavours, and the printed menus, it is without a doubt better than any European or American carrier. Within my online reservation, Emirates allows you to see the menu in advance if you are regularly catered passenger. For Helena with her Low Lactose meal order its a case of Russian roulette as to what she'll be served. Here's what my options were for this seven hour flight to Gatwick.
We were served around one hour into the flight. I opted for the beef stroganoff.
Alcohol was available, but I stuck to soft drinks for this flight. In the top left is a quinoa salad as a starter. This was so so, with no real flavour to speak of. The beef stroganoff was creamy, but needed a bit of salt to get it where I wanted. The potato wedges look great, but microwaving roasted potatoes means you're going to end up with a sad soggy lump of starch. The desert on the other hand, oh boy, for the vanilla and caramel profiteroles let me just quote from my notes, "quite possibly the best economy desert I've had". Add to this the crunchy corn, the cheese in the middle, and the bread roll, I was quite frankly stuffed after eating all of this.
Helena's low lactose meal consisted of a starter of sweet potato mix bean salad with soya and red kidney beans. For the main she has roast chicken with a lemon zest marinade, tagine vegetables, and barley. Desert was a coconut sago pudding with sour cherry compote.
She found the starter to be a bit bland, again needing some salt to bring out some flavour. The main was a tale of two halves with the tagine vegetables and the barley to be excellent, but the chicken was severely overcooked, with a consistency of of dried paper mache. The pudding though stole the show, being the best dessert she's had from a special meal.
If that wasn't enough, three hours later we were served "afternoon tea". For me this was a coronation chicken sandwich, a scone with jam and clotted cream, and a piece of banoffee pie.
The coronation chicken sandwiches were fine... bread was a bit stale round the edges. The scone was a delight, warmed up in the oven beforehand, the smell permeated the cabin in all directions. Full credit to Emirates for going the extra mile with this, I've been served unheated scones in Business aboard British airlines. The banoffee pie was incredibly sweet, I shudder at the thought of how many calories I consumed on these flights.
Helena too was served an afternoon tea consisting of a chicken sandwich with gherkin mayo, a piece of fruit cake, and a quinoa coconut pudding.
We thought it'd be interesting to show you how a low lactose meal get presented, with each item individually noted for it's "low lactose meal" suitability, and packaged to avoid cross contamination. This afternoon was the best of all the four she had been served across these two flights. If you've read Helena's review of Virgin Atlantic Upper Class, you'll know that unfortunately she's been disappointed with poor food one too many times. The chicken sandwich was fresh, with a great zing from the gherkins, Helena said she could have eaten four of these it was that good. The fruit cake was moist with good flavour. And the quinoa coconut pudding was absolutely a stand out moment, with the raspberry compote cutting through nicely. Emirates absolutely blew it out of the park with this afternoon tea. And with that, the trays were removed, and we began our descent into Gatwick.
How was this overall?
This is an Economy flight, so temper your expectations, but I don't think this Economy product can be beaten. The seat, cabin, and the food, this really is the complete package. But, if your Emirates flight contains a Boeing 777 in your itinerary, then I would be lowering my expectations. The A380 really is a joy to fly and is the antithesis to everything the 777 is. Would I book Emirates Economy again? Absolutely, but only aboard the A380.
I'm flying Qatar Airways Economy next week, I wonder how the two will compare?
Sam
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