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Taken 13 July 2006 from Manchester, England (Ringway International Airport) - MAN to Bangkok (Don Muang International Airport) - BKK

Flights connected in Dubai (DXB)

Outbound

MANCHESTER-DUBAI

Boarding was easy and not too much of a rush as with other airlines (Emirates has a dedicated boarding area at Manchester). The aircraft was a reasonably new airbus A330-200 cabin was quite spacious with a 2-4-2 seating layout. I was fortunate to get a window seat, the seats were reasonably comfortable but the lumbar support dug into my back a bit. Each seat had a personal TV with a few movies, games, and TV programmes the screens also had a forward and downward camera view, the cameras was mounted on the front of the aircraft and were fun to watch during take-off and landing. The one complaint I have about the TV’s is that they frequently crashed. The flight was pretty uneventful and I was asleep for the most part of it but I did notice that the drinks service only came round twice on a seven hour flight.

DUBAI-BANGKOK

Dubai airport is pretty amazing and very well organized didn’t get time to do any shopping though but It looked very good. Boarding was again very easy. Aircraft was the same as the previous leg with same in-flight entertainment. The captain announced that it was going to be quite a bumpy ride (but it wasn’t!). On this flight I experienced something I had never experienced before, some guy got air rage. We were about half way through the flight when this guy starts shouting and swearing and claiming another guy kicked him, he started to get very angry and it was quite scary as he was standing right next to my seat. It took 3 air stewards to virtually restrain this guy and get him to calm down. It was an evening landing into Bangkok, the approach into Bangkok is very scenic and not to be missed (lots of temples). Immigration at Bangkok seemed to take forever but we finally got through.

Inbound

BANGKOK-DUBAI

Return journey was a midnight departure return immigration isn’t as slow as they already have all your details on file. Aircraft was a Boeing 777-300 and was transiting Bangkok from Hong Kong. Entertainment system was the same as the outbound. The Captain announced that the flight wasn’t meant to be bumpy (It was!). After take-off about 30mins into the flight over the Bay of Bengal, when we came across a storm and experience extreme and very sudden turbulence, the plane dipped and rolled violently. The cabin crew were in the middle of their drinks service when this happened, so they had to put the brakes on their trolleys and sit on people’s armrests. The turbulence carried on for almost all of the flight. It was an early morning arrival into Dubai.

DUBAI-MANCHESTER

When we were given our boarding passes the seats were not the same as the ones that we had booked so we had to get those changed which took AGES. Return aircraft was a Boeing 777-300ER which was brand new. Seats were extremely comfortable, this aircraft had emirates’ brand new entertainment system with hundreds of movies to watch whenever you want although it didn’t work for half of the flight. Flight was very smooth no turbulence this time.

I would definitely fly with Emirates again