Review of Emirates flight from Dubai to Kuwait City in Economy

UAE

EK - Emirates

Flight taken on 29 December 2024
EK859
21:04 01h 20m 21:24
Class Economy
Seat 25K
VM
929 · 70 · 0 · 13

Background


This flight was booked as part of a multi-city Amman-Dubai-Kuwait routing with Emirates, to get from Amman to Kuwait with a few days in between. There is more background in my Amman-Dubai A380 flight report.


Flight routing


Dubai International Airport & Boarding


Luckily Terminal 3 departures were far less chaotic than arrivals. There was an area of regular check-in at the counter, but I used the self baggage drop.


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There was a bit of a line for baggage drop. While waiting I noticed a Christmas tree which was the only bit of decoration in the terminal.


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The baggage drop worked well.


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There were some travelers that were having trouble with it, though. Unfortunately the staff seemed a bit frustrated and were rude to them. They also got angry with someone who started walking out of the baggage drop area the wrong way.
On the way to security I saw Air Canada check-in signs, other than that it was all Emirates.


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Security and immigration were quick and easy, with none of the chaos of arriving immigration.
A look at departures for this evening, Emirates is extremely dominant as expected. Of these dozens of flights only 3 are not Emirates or flydubai: Air Canada to Toronto and Vancouver (I didn't even know they flew DXB-YVR), and United to Newark.
The diversity of destinations is incredible. Everything from Clark to Montreal-Trudeau, Pattaya to Bogota, and Islamabad to Cape Town.


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It was a bit of a walk to the gate.


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It wasn't actually boarding: passengers at the gate were requested to head downstairs, where there was another seating area. Every gate needs a lot of seats at DXB.


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A few minutes later boarding of the plane began.


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Our aircraft was A6-EQB, a 7.7 year old 777-300ER that had recently arrived from Seattle-Tacoma.


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Seat & Departure


A quick look at a business class seat. Business was in a 2-3-2 configuration.


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And of economy.


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My seat in row 25, near the front of the economy cabin


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There was a pillow at each seat and blankets were available on request.


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Each seat had a screen, as well as a remote to go with it and USB ports.


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The other seats in my row also had more power.


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The tray table was a bit different from normal tray tables, those metal things went into the seatback and held the tray table up.


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Each seat had personal lights and air vents.


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The seatback pockets contained a safety card, sickness bag, and magazine.


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Peach and blue lighting was turned on prior to departure.


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The no nonsense safety video was played, luckily there was no video advertising ice this time.


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Passing another Emirates 777 on the way out.


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The Air Canada 777.


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Emirates A380 in the Expo 2020 Dubai special livery.


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Along with a whole line of EK aircraft.


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…and we take off for this short flight up to Kuwait.


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Dinner


Dinner service commenced soon after take off. This is my pre ordered special meal.


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I got some 7-up with it.


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The meal was terrible, I honestly can't remember any flight with a meal as bad as this. Worse than the banana and orange I got on Virgin Atlantic as the second meal on London-Delhi in 2023, or the dinner of soggy, slimy tofu with raw tomato pieces that marred an otherwise excellent Air Tahiti Nui Papeete-Los Angeles flight earlier that year.
The wrap was ok and the chocolate cake wasn't too bad, but the brown bread thing was dry and inedible, and the main course was cold, with some components of it bland and others tasting awful.


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I just couldn't eat this meal although I almost always finish my meals on flights. I do appreciate them providing a meal - including special meal options - on such a short flight, but this was just one really bad meal.


IFE & In-flight


IFE content was a little different from the selection on the A380 Amman-Dubai flight, and marginally more limited overall, but still excellent. I forgot to get a picture of them but the same headphones were provided as on the first flight.





The lavatory was a little dirty and had no extra amenities.
There were lots of empty rows further back. That's the problem with Emirates having an all-widebody fleet unlike Etihad and Qatar… it's often impossible to fill all the seats.
Cabin view.


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The flight was fairly quick and uneventful. Quick note on the FAs: they were generally a little more friendly than on the AMM-DXB flight except for one man who was a bit rude.


Arrival & Kuwait International Airport


After a fairly short flight we were landing in Kuwait. Quick taxi during which we passed this interesting strucutre and a line of Jazeera Airways A320s.


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Kuwait Airport was one of the most crowded I've ever been to. I'm regretting not taking any pictures of it, but there were people everywhere.
Do not follow arrivals signs if you're getting a visa on arrival. If, like me, you did, you will go downstairs to immigration. You may notice a sign pointing to the right and telling you to collect your visa there, despite no one being present at the booth. If you instead choose to enter the long, long line for immigration and wait to go to the front, you will be told to go to "21" upstairs, which is what I had to do.
Upstairs, after a little bit of searching, I did notice a small sign with directions that couldn't really be seen on the way down. In the (again very crowded) waiting area there was a man sitting with a hawk on his arm which was very cool to see!
It's very easy to miss the visa on arrival area "21" as there's just a little opening in between walls that opens up into a room with chairs and a view of many aircraft: I saw Air Cairo planes arriving from/bound to Sohag, Alexandria and Cairo, a Qatar Airways plane about to push back to Doha, some Jazeera A320s, and most interestingly of all, OD-MRT, a Middle East Airlines A320-200 in a 75th Anniversary retro livery heading back home to Beirut-Rafic Hariri… I'm really regretting not taking a picture of that, but it was getting quite late.
There was a form that needed to be filled out and presented to an office after waiting in a short line. He said to go to "big boss" who spent a few minutes filling out a form of his own and then printing it. Big boss then said to go to another counter in the same room, where the regular immigration was done, meaning that there was no need to wait in line at immigration downstairs. That officer gave the instruction to just walk through, it felt very strange just walking past the immigration booths.
By that point bags had been offloaded and put on the side.
The exit area of KWI felt a lot more like India than Dubai or Amman, both of which were nice, modern airports. KWI on the other hand was a bit rundown.
It was time to head the hotel for one night before coming back the next evening for the Kuwait Airways flight to Mumbai that I was desperately hoping wouldn't get switched from the A330-800neo to a 777 or A320.

Display all

Product ratings

Airline

Emirates 6.6

  • Cabin7.5 / 10
  • Cabin crew6.5 / 10
  • Entertainment/wifi8.5 / 10
  • Meal/catering4.0 / 10
Departure airport

Dubai - DXB7.8

  • Efficiency8.0 / 10
  • Access8.5 / 10
  • Services7.0 / 10
  • Cleanliness7.5 / 10
Arrival Airport

Kuwait City - KWI5.9

  • Efficiency4.5 / 10
  • Access6.0 / 10
  • Services6.5 / 10
  • Cleanliness6.5 / 10

Conclusion

Another rather average flight with Emirates. If not for the catering issues and one rude FA it would have been better than the Amman-Dubai flight - even though it wasn't an A380 - but I have to rate it a little lower. If I was flying on this route again I would probably rather go on Kuwait Airways, to be honest. Emirates isn't a bad airline by any means, especially when it comes to entertainment, but it's not as good as its reputation (at least for short haul flights - for long haul, I would be much more inclined to fly them).
Departures from Dubai was a lot better than arrivals.
Arrivals in Kuwait was a mess, although I think Terminal 1, used by international airlines, is worse than the other terminals or at least Kuwait Airways' Terminal 4.

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