Emirates announced that they'll be launching A380 service to Houston and San Francisco as of December 2014, making them the largest A380 operator to the US. They will be increasing capacity in these markets, replacing the existing Boeing 777 service on the routes. Will be very excited to see these "big birds" at Houston and…
Continue reading: Emirates A380 Flights to Houston And San Francisco
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Awesome! Finally a direct flight to the Middle east from SF. Though I must admit I do enjoy the shower break as connect through FRA.
No award availability for First class from SFO to DXB starting in December as of yet (via Alaska). Maybe not loaded.
@Levy Flight - Emirates already serves SFO, they're just changing from a current 777 to a A380
Has award space ever been available for flight EK226 from Alaska?
Now if they would only get a 380 out of SEA to DXB...
Going to have to read up on some EK redemptions. Excited to attempt an A380 F award.
Charlie, I flew EK's A380 from AKL to SYD in early February. Very nice hard product but the meal tray slides out from the side and with my pot belly, made for an extremely tight squeeze. The usual VOD with movies and TV programs; electric and USB outlets; and adequate lighting and seat controls.
Dinner meal service started with appetizers and afterwards the you know what hit the fan. When the app plates were being collected I noticed two FA's looking at a passenger manifest, whispering and then looking at us. From that point on we were completely ignored, even though other passengers were receiving their entrees while I rang the FA call light several times and tried to flag down a passing FA to get the rest of our meal. When I finally stood in the aisle and politely asked for our entree, I received dirty looks and the plates were almost thrown on our trays. We never received dessert. What the heck was going on? And then it hit me.
On EK's web site, international passengers are required to list their names including middle names. My wife uses her maiden name for her middle name and it is very Jewish sounding (for example, "Goldstein"). I strongly believe the FA's saw my wife's maiden name and since we're Jewish, they did their best to ignore us and be rude. No smiles or goodbyes when we deplaned, etc.
We had flown United in F, Asiana and Thai in J, and this was our one leg on EK. Never again.
I would imagine it is too early to look at award availability for these new routes?
Dave- My last name sounds Jewish even though I'm Catholic. I've never had any service issue on any Middle Eastern airline because of that. I've flown Emirates, Etihad, Qatar, Kuwait, and Gulf Airways.
@ Charlie -- Heh, at some point I may have to take one for the team and give it a try. 😉
@ Darla -- I've definitely seen some in the past, especially close to departure.
Wonder how they will deal with the SFO lounge. Their current lounge has direct boarding to gate a7, a non a380 compatible gate. Wonder if they'll attach a9 (3 bridges, a380 compatible) to a new, larger lounge, or make a7 a380 compatible, and make a9 747 only (747 is the max size of a7 currently)
Lucky, when does EK load new routes into the award schedule typically? Looking via AS. Or is it just check everyday.
@ joey -- Makes sense to check every day, not an exact timeline in my experience.
@ Dave - I doubt they ignored you and your wife because of a Jewish sounding name, all Emirates crew are international themselves with the majority not even being from the Middle East and so it would make no sense for them to have any prejudice.... Also the UAE allows Jews and those with Israeli stamps to pass through DXB anyway so it's not as if the cabin crew will have never interacted with someone who has a Jewish sounding name before.
Yes! I live in Houston so it's exciting to see another A380 flight 🙂
@ Lucky - Did you notice that IAH plane will have 401 Y seats? Unless it's a typo, they could be rolling out a new config. SeatGuru currently shows A380 V1 with 399 Y (like SFO flight) and V2 with 407.
Sam, I hope you're right but our cabin crew (at least, the business class) were all Middle Eastern in appearance. A male FA was particularly nasty to me. Neither my wife nor I had done anything to aggravate or annoy the cabin crew so I don't know what was going on.
This is good news as the 777 business class seats are horrid. Hopefully they will upgrade the food as well. The FAs on my flights were great but 3 hours to serve dinner is ridiculous. I only wish they bumped the schedule a few hours. 3pm from SFO sucks (hard to sleep) and 8am return is too early, particularly when connecting. But I know schedules are all about the connections.
@ Ivan Y -- Hmm, interesting. I know eventually they're rolling out two cabin A380s, but doubt that's the case to Houston. And the seat count isn't different enough for it materially to make sense to have yet another subfleet. That's odd...
@ Ivan Y - IAH is getting the ULR version of the A380 which has 2 additional Y seats.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/emirates-skywards/1535062-emirates-new-routes-changes-2014-a-26.html
Why don't you ever review their 777-300ER first class? Exact same thing minus the showers. I want to see how that feels like.
Emirates has had the A380 flying to SFO due to plane changes a few times. Have spotted it from the highway!
@ Kyle - thanks! Per the thread, sounds like the type of plane that will fly to IAH will have some updates/modifications that will allow it to fly slightly longer without having to have special engines installed on the frames that fly, say, to LAX-DXB.
@ Lucky - But then you could redo EK 355 all over again! https://onemileatatime.com/a380-extravaganza-emirates-first-class-singapore-to-dubai/