Berlin
Established Member
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2011
- Posts
- 2,786
- Qantas
- Platinum
I just came back from a little trip to New Zealand and thought I treat myself to Emirates business class on the way back. Just to see what we can expect going forward once the QF-EK deal goes ahead.
On the way out I went in cattle class but have done the trip often enough in J as well so I think I can quite easily compare the two airlines. First off, I spoilt myself in the Qantas Flounge which was as great as ever. Went only with hand luggage so that I can maximize my time in the lounge- had over 4 hours in the end which opened up the opportunity for a little Men's facial in the spa. I also managed to get both breakfast and lunch in so I ended up close to bursting by the time I left for my flight
View attachment 10623
The corn fritters with bacon and guacamole were absolutely divine and worked very well with my first glass of Bol
View attachment 10624
Luckily, I had arrived early enough to still squeeze in the usual Eggs Benedict before the breakfast menu was finished. As it is tradition, this also goes down with yet another glass of Bol
Then the lunch menu started. I always love my liver pates and this one certainly was no exception and matched the third glass of Bol in a lovely way:
View attachment 10625
The colourful sides you can see are pickled vegetables- I love how none of the Flounge meals ever is just simple and that's it! The daily menu had an Asian style pork belly dish on it which came next. Time to change to a red which was a lovely special of the day Shiraz served out of their decanter.
View attachment 10626
The little strips on top were actually caramelized hot chillies, ginger and lemongrass which was an excellent combination together with the slightly sweet sauce and the pork belly. Loved it!
I spare you images of my facial but afterwards had yet another glass of Bol and as then ready to brace Why class easily. The flight as uneventful, I appreciated the leg room in row 4 and the fact that those newer 737s have individual video screens. By the time I arrived in my hotel in Auckland I was well and truly boozed up and well fed to slumber away nicely
Now to the more important bit of my trip, I decided to give Emirates a go, just to see how their Business Class stacks up. And how well it does- my experience makes me really excited about the tie in with Qantas: First of, the lounge. Who ever has visited the Qantas "First" lounge in Auckland knows what a dismal experience the place is. Compare that to the Emirates Business lounge which is huge, very bright with plush sofas, two bars, nice clean bathroom and shower facilities and a great choice of drinks including Veuve champagne, nice Kiwi wines etc. The food is served from a self-serve buffet (reminded me a great deal of JAL's first lounge in Tokyo but I bet similar set ups exist elsewhere) but actually offers an astounding choice of cold and warm nibbles.
View attachment 10628
The image shows just a small selection (I don't eat seafood, hence none on there but they had a huge choice of that as well, if you so wish)- a lovely little salad plate with tomatos and grilled aspargus, a very tasty pot pie with beef and mushrooms (ten times nicer than those frozen reheated Neil Perry ones in the Qantas J lounges), little mini Samosas, zucchini fritters and some very nice little pastry things filled with beef filet strips and rich gravy. Yummie, yummie, yummie!
Now for the flight back, definitely the highlight of my entire trip. The A380s leave from the very far out gates in Auckland so it's a trip of about 10-15 minutes to get there. Unfortunately, the signage didn't reflect a quite severe delay so while all announcements and signs indicated that the gate was about to close, the reality at the gate looked very different with the big bird still parked quite a bit away on the taxiways, rather than at the actual gate. They shortly made a quite funny announcement "Ladies and gentlemen, Emirates sincerely apologizes for the slight delay in boarding which has been caused by our friends at Jetstar who once again blocked our gate much longer than they were meant to!". By the time the bird was finally towed to the gate and boarding commenced, I was certainly more than happy about my decision to fork out the money for Business class given that in front of the gate was an absolute mess of crying yelling coughing unhappy babies who of course all had a really important reason to be dragged on an overseas flight. :evil:
This is actually the sister bird going to Melbourne, as you can see there was a big empty void next to it at Gate 16...
On board upon entering the business cabin, you first notice the weird layout with the staggered seats. Once you get used to it, it actually makes lots of sense and is pure genius in a way: Unlike the Qantas A380 seating, every single window seat at the same time gets direct aisle access so you avoid climbing over smelly strangers in the middle of the night. You also get a lovely side table, lots of storage space, a personal minibar which is stocked with all those emergency non-alcoholic drinks that you otherwise desperately try to get someone's attention for -especially during take off and landing when you might need a sip of water.When turned into a bed, the seat gets entirely flat- definitely more proper "flat flat" than even the newer Qantas J seats. The one tiny negative is the feeling that those seats are a bit slimmer than on QF but I didn't fly overnight so can't really tell for sure. During those three hours, it certainly felt comfy enough so that I could have easily flown onto Dubai.
As on other quality airlines, you get served a pre-flight champagne and a steward introduces himself to you and takes the dinner order prior to take off. On offer was a surprisingly comprehensive menu with a lovely entree followed by a choice of three different mains.
Needless to say, the bird itself is just lovely- spacious, modern and big at the same time as hardly making any noise even if you're seated right by the engines. What a masterpiece of human engineering! Apologies- I just love the A380 Back to the food... Dinner was served all on one plate which is okay on such a short flight. I had a Bloody Mary to start with and asked for some salt and pepper which came within seconds- a little service "test" for me as a certain Australian airline with a red tail doesn't ever manage to fulfill me that wish. The same can be said about toothpicks which Qantas doesn't even stock in first but are a welcome standard insertion to the cutlery pack in Emirates. Cutlery was lovely silverware and the food was astounding: I had the chicken terrine followed by the lemon chicken with roasted mushrooms- divine! They also served a choice of hot breads with it including hot garlic bread :shock: I was sold by that point!
Please appologise for the red tint- it's caused by the "mood lighting", in my eyes the most useless and stupid of the new gimmics they got in newer planes (as if the stupid red light has ever helped anyone with their jetlag- Stilnox does!). For the ones who are interested- the Entertainment system on the A380 is way better than what most other airlines offer with an incredible choice of movies, music and programs- I particularly like the three different outside cameras and choice of two different flight path displays. The screen is also huge, even compared to other J class screens and you get a cool hand held remote with it's own colour display. Finally, shortly before touching down in Sydney, desert was served and chose the cheese platter, together with a nice glass of Port that actually came from Portugal and hence deserved its name. They seriously serve the cheese platter on a wooden board and you get 5 different cheeses, on a 3 hour flight. Wow- that's a way to turn me into a happy customer!
On the way out I went in cattle class but have done the trip often enough in J as well so I think I can quite easily compare the two airlines. First off, I spoilt myself in the Qantas Flounge which was as great as ever. Went only with hand luggage so that I can maximize my time in the lounge- had over 4 hours in the end which opened up the opportunity for a little Men's facial in the spa. I also managed to get both breakfast and lunch in so I ended up close to bursting by the time I left for my flight
View attachment 10623
The corn fritters with bacon and guacamole were absolutely divine and worked very well with my first glass of Bol
View attachment 10624
Luckily, I had arrived early enough to still squeeze in the usual Eggs Benedict before the breakfast menu was finished. As it is tradition, this also goes down with yet another glass of Bol
Then the lunch menu started. I always love my liver pates and this one certainly was no exception and matched the third glass of Bol in a lovely way:
View attachment 10625
The colourful sides you can see are pickled vegetables- I love how none of the Flounge meals ever is just simple and that's it! The daily menu had an Asian style pork belly dish on it which came next. Time to change to a red which was a lovely special of the day Shiraz served out of their decanter.
View attachment 10626
The little strips on top were actually caramelized hot chillies, ginger and lemongrass which was an excellent combination together with the slightly sweet sauce and the pork belly. Loved it!
I spare you images of my facial but afterwards had yet another glass of Bol and as then ready to brace Why class easily. The flight as uneventful, I appreciated the leg room in row 4 and the fact that those newer 737s have individual video screens. By the time I arrived in my hotel in Auckland I was well and truly boozed up and well fed to slumber away nicely
Now to the more important bit of my trip, I decided to give Emirates a go, just to see how their Business Class stacks up. And how well it does- my experience makes me really excited about the tie in with Qantas: First of, the lounge. Who ever has visited the Qantas "First" lounge in Auckland knows what a dismal experience the place is. Compare that to the Emirates Business lounge which is huge, very bright with plush sofas, two bars, nice clean bathroom and shower facilities and a great choice of drinks including Veuve champagne, nice Kiwi wines etc. The food is served from a self-serve buffet (reminded me a great deal of JAL's first lounge in Tokyo but I bet similar set ups exist elsewhere) but actually offers an astounding choice of cold and warm nibbles.
View attachment 10628
The image shows just a small selection (I don't eat seafood, hence none on there but they had a huge choice of that as well, if you so wish)- a lovely little salad plate with tomatos and grilled aspargus, a very tasty pot pie with beef and mushrooms (ten times nicer than those frozen reheated Neil Perry ones in the Qantas J lounges), little mini Samosas, zucchini fritters and some very nice little pastry things filled with beef filet strips and rich gravy. Yummie, yummie, yummie!
Now for the flight back, definitely the highlight of my entire trip. The A380s leave from the very far out gates in Auckland so it's a trip of about 10-15 minutes to get there. Unfortunately, the signage didn't reflect a quite severe delay so while all announcements and signs indicated that the gate was about to close, the reality at the gate looked very different with the big bird still parked quite a bit away on the taxiways, rather than at the actual gate. They shortly made a quite funny announcement "Ladies and gentlemen, Emirates sincerely apologizes for the slight delay in boarding which has been caused by our friends at Jetstar who once again blocked our gate much longer than they were meant to!".
By the time the bird was finally towed to the gate and boarding commenced, I was certainly more than happy about my decision to fork out the money for Business class given that in front of the gate was an absolute mess of crying yelling coughing unhappy babies who of course all had a really important reason to be dragged on an overseas flight. :evil:This is actually the sister bird going to Melbourne, as you can see there was a big empty void next to it at Gate 16...
On board upon entering the business cabin, you first notice the weird layout with the staggered seats. Once you get used to it, it actually makes lots of sense and is pure genius in a way: Unlike the Qantas A380 seating, every single window seat at the same time gets direct aisle access so you avoid climbing over smelly strangers in the middle of the night. You also get a lovely side table, lots of storage space, a personal minibar which is stocked with all those emergency non-alcoholic drinks that you otherwise desperately try to get someone's attention for -especially during take off and landing when you might need a sip of water.When turned into a bed, the seat gets entirely flat- definitely more proper "flat flat" than even the newer Qantas J seats. The one tiny negative is the feeling that those seats are a bit slimmer than on QF but I didn't fly overnight so can't really tell for sure. During those three hours, it certainly felt comfy enough so that I could have easily flown onto Dubai.
As on other quality airlines, you get served a pre-flight champagne and a steward introduces himself to you and takes the dinner order prior to take off. On offer was a surprisingly comprehensive menu with a lovely entree followed by a choice of three different mains.
Needless to say, the bird itself is just lovely- spacious, modern and big at the same time as hardly making any noise even if you're seated right by the engines. What a masterpiece of human engineering! Apologies- I just love the A380
Back to the food... Dinner was served all on one plate which is okay on such a short flight. I had a Bloody Mary to start with and asked for some salt and pepper which came within seconds- a little service "test" for me as a certain Australian airline with a red tail doesn't ever manage to fulfill me that wish. The same can be said about toothpicks which Qantas doesn't even stock in first but are a welcome standard insertion to the cutlery pack in Emirates. Cutlery was lovely silverware and the food was astounding: I had the chicken terrine followed by the lemon chicken with roasted mushrooms- divine! They also served a choice of hot breads with it including hot garlic bread :shock: I was sold by that point!Please appologise for the red tint- it's caused by the "mood lighting", in my eyes the most useless and stupid of the new gimmics they got in newer planes (as if the stupid red light has ever helped anyone with their jetlag- Stilnox does!
). For the ones who are interested- the Entertainment system on the A380 is way better than what most other airlines offer with an incredible choice of movies, music and programs- I particularly like the three different outside cameras and choice of two different flight path displays. The screen is also huge, even compared to other J class screens and you get a cool hand held remote with it's own colour display. Finally, shortly before touching down in Sydney, desert was served and chose the cheese platter, together with a nice glass of Port that actually came from Portugal and hence deserved its name. They seriously serve the cheese platter on a wooden board and you get 5 different cheeses, on a 3 hour flight. Wow- that's a way to turn me into a happy customer!
