Etihad Airways » A340-600 (3-class new) » User reviews

SteveWard flew Etihad Airways Coral Economy, on a A340-600 (3-class new) (14/01/2012 18:11)

There was a great service at Sydney airport before boarding.

The man on the desk tried his best to get me in an emergency exit seat being 6' 4" tall.

Unlike Singapore Airlines there is no system, it seems to be first come first served and no priority for taller people. Unable to get a seat with enough legroom it did cause a bit of anxiety when I boarded the plane to sit in seat 18C, 2 rows in front of a row of children in the middle, extra leg room seats!

The 15 hour flight was extremely uncomfortable, not being able to sit straight in my seat with my legs closed. No chance of any sleep.

The food was very good with good choices. The entertainment system was the saviour of the flight keeping my mind off the lack of blood circulation to my legs.

Anyone under 5'10" should be alright, but the service was just ok, not a patch on Singapore Airlines who I will return to for my next trip.

YOMAMASOFAT flew Etihad Airways Pearl Business, on a A340-600 (3-class new) (25/08/2011 18:20)

I flew CBR-MEL-AUH-ATH one-way in Business. I flew Qantas from CBR-MEL and got to experience the awesome Qantas Business lounge in Canberra. It was much better than their Sydney and Melbourne lounges. Other than that, Qantas is not good and if you can, avoid it unless you're in business or premium economy.

They're ok. I'm just ranting on about Qantas, aren't I? Let's talk about the greatness of Etihad, shall we.

At 1930, I got picked up by a van (Etihad limo service for 6 people + driver) and driven to Melbourne Airport for the flight to Abu Dhabi.

Check-in was quite quick, as the Business queue was deserted. I did have a bit of trouble at security (my CD wallet is lime-green and apparently looked like a liquid(hahaha!).

I was airside by 2100 and the first thing I saw when I entered the Air New Zealand lounge was "Is this a lounge or an economy class departure lounge?" The food was OK but there was nothing to do. Although my flight was supposed to leave at 22:10, I got called at 21:10. My family and I waited until the final call at 21:30 and then headed up to the plane.

As I didn't know whether I would get the new or the old seat, I was very anxious to see. Fortunately, it was the new one.

I was in seat 12K at the very back corner of Business class. My family sat in seats 11D, G, H and 12E and F. Before take-off, I was offered water and a hot towel. I was thinking 'How good's this?, as I had only ever been on Qantas and Virgin Australia previously.

We took off at 22:04 and as soon as the seatbelt sign went off, the air hostesses came and took dinner orders. I ordered a veal cutlet and mashed potato. It was the best aeroplane food ever! Dessert was ice cream with a delicious biscuit on top. I then started watching "Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2" as I had not seen it yet. The E-box is easy to use and you can just fast-forward past the ads. About halfway in, i paused and started playing bkackjack against the AI opponent and won lots of "money" I then reclined the seat flat and slept for five hours on that super-comfy bed.

The service was very good, although my mother complained of a rude hostess (I was on the other aisle so i didn't have to worry about that). About 2 hours out from landing, I got airsick (my travel medicine wore off) The purser was very helpful , as I went through 6 sick bags (poor me :( ).

I arrived in Abu Dhabi at 6:00am and I used their awesome lounge. Some of these reviews say that there is only one shower, but there are actually 6 more in the spa. I had a shower there and had breakfast. I tried surfing the internet in the business centre, but Safari kept blocking my Facebook and Gmail (security). I gave up and fixed this when I arrived in Athens with Google Chrome. The food was very good (especially if you love fried stuff).

At 9am, a staff member who had taken us to the lounge (this was a surprise) took us down to the taxiway and instead of being bussed, we got driven in 2 cars (there were 6 of us after all!) to our plane, an Airbus A320-200.

I sat in seat 2A, a window seat, but as there were only 2 people in the cabin apart from my family, we moved around a bit. I ended up landing in seat 1A. The inflight entertainment was the same as the longer flight, which is good (*cough* *cough* Qantas). I watched Kung Fu Panda 2 and played more blackjack (i like playing it). the lunch wasn't one of the best aeroplane lunches ever, but it was better than some food, such as Virgin's food (and you have to pay for that!).

I landed in Athens at 1300, 25 min. ahead of schedule. I got through immigration quite quickly and I had to help heave 7 check-in bags and 6 carry-on bags to a minibus (not from Etihad, as they don't do the limo service in Athens).

DisgustedofSwieqi flew Etihad Airways Pearl Business, on a A340-600 (3-class new) (10/07/2011 05:39)

As a resident of Malta, who travels regularly to the Middle East, options were affected when British Airways decided to withdraw from serving the islands. This meant trying to find ‘through’ tickets from agents such as Expedia or risking the journey with two separate tickets, which usually meant allowing several hours of ‘buffer’ between flights.

Air Malta and Etihad Airways launched a codeshare last year, facilitating a single ticket trip from Malta to Abu Dhabi, with snug connections through London Heathrow terminal 4 and with a regular business class fare of approximately 1,530 euros, which represents very god value for money. This report chronicles my first use of this service.

I could not check in online for the flight (Air Malta uses a Sabre system for this) and had to report to the business class counter, where my baggage was checked all the way through to AUH, but only the London boarding pass was issued, due to system mismatches. This is not acceptable and the two airlines need to work on a solution to allow check in all the way through.

I will not describe the Air Malta segment to Heathrow, as I have previously reported typical business class flight. This one was no exception, although due to traffic flow restrictions from the UK, we did depart about one or late and as my connection was 1 hour 45 minutes, this was less than helpful, although beyond Air Malta’s control.

Arriving at Heathrow on 27L was helpful, as the taxi to terminal 4 was short and fast. Flight connections was quiet and so was the Etihad ticket desk, so I found myself walking virtually all the length of terminal 4 to get to flight connections and then half the way back, to gate 10. This was not user friendly, but then Heathrow generally isn’t in my 33 years of experiencing it.

Arriving towards the end of boarding, I was greeted on board the A340-600 by name and escorted to seat 11G, a nice touch more often encountered in first class, than in business. I was asked for my choice of pre-flight drink and requested a glass of water.

The seat was a middle aisle seat and my initial impressions were that it was a little narrow. Later when I decided to sleep, I found it just wide enough to be comfortable and truly a flat bed. Compared to British Airway’s business class seat, it is not quite as wide ad is a little firmer. Having said that, I did sleep well on the seat.

When my glass of water arrived, I was asked for my after take-off drink and given a menu. I was surprised to discover that dining would be at my convenience and two main courses were on offer, with some alternative ‘light’ meals options.

The flight pushed back on schedule, followed by the normal 20 minute tax at Heathrow.

After take-off, I received a glass of G H Mumm cord rouge, which I thought was a reasonable fizz for a business class cabin and then decided to sleep, in the knowledge that I could eat later. Later turned out to be over Romania, where the aircraft had a slight turbulence encounter that woke me.

I decided to order a steak sandwich from the light menu and it came in about 20 minutes and was delicious. I often wonder why airlines try to produce restaurant style experiences, when a lot of us just want a good sandwich.

The service from the cabin crew was enthusiastic, but slightly ‘gauche.’ An example of this was after dinner, when I asked for a small glass of brandy and I waited over 15 minutes, following which a flustered stewardess arrived apologetically with a glass of (delightful) champagne cognac, saying how sorry she was that the aircraft had no brandy loaded, but that her colleague said this was similar. I had visions of the crew unpacking all the atlas boxes in search of the mythical drink!

Having recounted this amusing incident, I much prefer an enthusiastic approach to a smooth robotic service, so it did not in any way detract from the flight.

The inflight entertainment package looked similar to Emirates (which is intended as a compliment), although I did not use it on this overnight sector. The screen at my seat was about the same size as a 15” laptop, although fixed to the end of my seat pod, one did not get the impression of it being 5” larger than the BA business class screen, which is located nearer.

I dropped off to sleep over Turkey and woke up to the ‘bong’ of the seat belt sign, about 40 minutes out of Abu Dhabi, the crew had let me sleep through breakfast, per my preference.

Arrival was a bit of a shambles, being on a remote stand and with the air stairs being replaced after a few first class passengers had de-planed.

We were coached into terminal 1 and I discovered that my suitcase had not arrived, not a complete surprise given a tight connection at Heathrow. The same thing happened last year with an Air Malta/British Airways connection of over two hours and is not acceptable. Air Malta and Etihad need to get their act together and coordinate the delivery of ‘rush bags’ from flights running late on a tight connection.

Service recovery was professional, with an immediate cash payment of 200 AED for necessities and a promise that the case would arrive on the next flight from Heathrow, which it did at around 1915. A courier delivered the case at 0430 the next morning, which prevented me having my clothes pressed before work, but at least they arrived. I received an email, later in the day, advising me of progress and when I called later in the evening, I was promptly given the cell phone number of the courier, so that I could feel comfortable that the case would arrive – anyone who has ever waited for missing cases will understand how reassuring this was.

Overall, I would rate the flight as good value for money and the experience is very different to British Airways, with better food, better IFE (not that this is important to me), comparable drinks, slightly inferior seat (although I got nearly five hours sleep on a 6 hour 40 minute flight), much worse check in facilities, very different service with enthusiasm versus professionalism, but perhaps more importantly, very good ground service when things went wrong.