Ten long years after my last flight on the Airbus A380 with Air France, time has come to fly on the whale again.
I live in Skopje where Turkish Airlines has a monopoly on travel to Asia so, the sole reason behind this itinerary was to fly on Emirates and their iconic A380.
Back in April I bought 4 open-jaw tickets from Belgrade to Kuala Lumpur via Dubai and from Singapore to Belgrade via Dubai. Ticket price was 920 euro per person in economy. I will be reviewing the return part of my journey from Southeast Asia.
My first flight was EK353 departing from terminal 1 at Singapore Changi Airport. Terminal 1 is adjacent to Jewel, a nature themed entertainment and retail complex featuring the world’s largest indoor waterfall. Singapore Changi Airport is always ranked among the best airports in the world and The Jewel certainly contributes to this.
The usual activities at the airport were done without human interaction, meaning check-in, baggage drop-off and passport control are done by machines. Like there are not enough luxury shops throughout Singapore City and Jewel, the airside of terminal 1 resembles a luxury shopping mall.
I don’t know what is the most expensive liquor, but this rare cask Louis XIII by Remi Martin with a price tag of 50.000 USD on sale at Changi, must be close to the top.
Boarding was done even ahead of time, but as we were told by the pilot, due to late connecting passengers and delayed catering, we would commence push back 2 hours late.
Now let me tell you about my impressions from the flight:
-aircraft- A380, the best. Eerily quiet, maximally comfortable, superior to any other aircraft.
-cabin crew, so many of them, but only few actually working. Others just wandering around.
-catering, good timings, plentiful and tasty. Chicken or potatoes puff pastry after departure and omelet or beef noodles for breakfast.
-IFE, the famous ICE, excellent.
Overall, nice experience but nothing spectacular.
This entire flight was in the dark, and while flying over Nicobar and Andaman islands, I could not but think about Sentinelese, a voluntary isolated tribe living a simple hunting-gathering life, 10 kilometers below this engineering marvel we were flying on.
Even with the delay on departure, I still got 4 hours transit time at Dubai Airport. Well, Dubai Airport is not a nice place. Overcrowded , dirty toilets, very limited waiting areas and even my children commented they were expecting something more shiny and that Istanbul Airport is way better than Dubai Airport.
In theory Flydubai flight to Belgrade is operated from Terminal 3, but in reality you end up on a more than 20 minutes long bus ride to a remote stand close to Terminal 2. The aircraft to Belgrade was brand new Boeing 737 MAX 8. I have only good words about this flight and the service provided by the cabin crew. A very polite Moroccan flight attendant told me there were 137 passengers in economy and zero in business. He also told me that on flights to Belgrade pilots always have layover, but only on the evening flight, cabin crew get to rest in Belgrade. We were served breakfast followed by tea and coffee.
I understand BEG is still under construction, but after a lengthy walk from the gate to the passport control and baggage claim, what I can say is that I have never seen floors being so dirty and in my opinion the design is mediocre at best.
The last part of my trip was driving my car to Skopje which proved to be a difficult task after so many hours of travelling and changing time zones.
Share your travel experience by submitting a trip report to exyu@exyuaviation.com
Great report, thank you very much.
ReplyDeleteI think the floor in BEG always looks dirtier than it actually is and that is because they put cheep tiles on it.
I have been flying to BEG at least once in 2 months and have never noticed dirty floors out of renovation area.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2024/08/photos-belgrade-airport-construction.html
My impression of the dirty floors is from the area just before passport control and the baggage claim area. Maybe those bright almost white tiles are bad choice
DeleteUsually the white tiles are the most economical choice. And if you need a lot of tiles like am airport terminal does it saves you a lot.
DeleteVinci is responsible for it.
Yes. Vinci is responsible for dirtiness and lack of staff who would regulary clean and shine floor.
DeleteIts an airport not a loval supermarket where you should redu enprice of tiles..
It is a first thing travelers see when they arive to any country.
Thanks for sharing Atanas,
ReplyDeleteNot sure I would do the travelling to BGD just to catch a flight with EK, but in most points you are right:
EK' A380 is also my favorite to fly with: big windows, VERY quiet, more spacious cabin.
You surely compared this with e.g. LH group prices? they also have new planes, such as A350 they use for these destinations, I would be curious to try them out as well.
And yes, it is a bit spooky when the flight route shows you are flying over the Sentinel islands :)
Apart from BEG tiled floors can be seen in OTP and SOF. I call such airports 'bathroom-like airports'.
ReplyDeleteLOL, that's so true!
DeleteThanks for a rather nice trip report! I would like to take A380 flight myself :)
ReplyDeleteZero passengers in business
ReplyDelete,ouch
And yet they have 2 daily flights. Must be doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. Some people on here.
DeleteFlydubai is not so after business pax, I guess the business choose Qatar or Turkish from BEG whenever possible.
DeleteFirst of all it is laughable that you deduce their business class loads on one flight off season. On the other hand, FZ business class from BEG is outrageous with pricing. 3200 euros return and it is fixed price throughout the year. QR is 1200.
DeleteI guess it depends on the day, I was flying with them like a week ago and business was full.
DeleteNice report, I enjoyed reading it.
ReplyDeleteAnon18:17
ReplyDeleteI deduce nothing, and have no idea how did you make that conclusion? I just said - zero businees passengers on any flight is not good, even there is multiple flights. Especially if economy is full more than 80%, that is good indicator of something, accept it or not, up to you.
It is an indicator of absolutely nothing. You can't make conclusion based on one random flight.
DeleteI flew last week BEG-DXB in JC and half of pax were upgraded. That's the reason EK is not flying to BEG yet. Simply not enough JC pax.
ReplyDeleteCrazy that cabin crew don't have layover on such a long flight as DXB - BEG
ReplyDeleteThanks for the report. I flew on EK A380 Dubai to Hong Kong, it is a fantastic plane, but the downside is I've waited for almost 2 hours for my suitcase. 500+ passengers, 500+ suitcases, not nice.
ReplyDelete