Airline/s for local travel within UAE, Egypt, Jordan region

[DionM]

Long time lurker first time poster

I'm currently planning a family trip to the middle east - Dubai, Egypt (Cairo/Luxor/Nile and more to come as we plan our trip) and Jordan (Amman, Petra, Wadi Rum, plus others I'm sure) from Australia. Basically the theme is in that region. Early plan would be Australia (Brisbane) - Dubai - Egypt - Jordan - Australia. Our focus is nature and 'historical built environment' (old buildings ...) with the odd bit of shopping and vehicle culture (Dubai) thrown in ...

Part of the early planning is working out how to travel between these locations. Getting from Dubai to Cairo I can book some "bigger" airlines (Emirates or Qatar for example) but other travel in the region will involve some of the more local carriers that I - as an Australian who has only travelled to Japan, Europe and US - am not familiar with e.g. EgyptAir, Royal Jordanian, Air Cairo, Nile Air.

Knowing very little of these airlines, which would be the 'better' airlines to pick - in terms of reliability, service level etc? My son and I are very tall (between 190 and 200cm) so we need space and am okay to book 'business' (or the equivalent) if better on these carriers (although my recent experiences with JAL and Air France economy on their domestic/short-haul flights was far roomier than any Qantas economy seat I've had ...).

Alternately, would we be silly to route via an external hub in order to get 'bigger' names and 'avoid' local carriers - e.g. to get from Egypt to Jordan rather than take a direct flight on a smaller carrier, we fly Qatar to Doha from Cairo and then Doha to Amman afterwards. More expensive of course (more flights), involves some backtracking and soaks up more time (but then again, we could add a couple of days in Doha onto our trip ...).

Sorry if the question sounds weird, hopefully it makes sense?

 

[p--and--t]

We flew Cairo to Amman and then Amman to DOH on Royal Jordanian in J. While not up to the standard of QR is more than acceptable. The flight times are not that long. 90m and 2.5h. Think MEL to SYD and BNE to ADL.

I for one would not be turning the flights into two sector with another airport and deplaning and reboarding and security etc in lieu of short direct flights on a reputable airline.

Egypt air economy on the flight I took from CMN to CAI was squeezy.

BTW I am 190cm

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Long time lurker first time poster

I'm currently planning a family trip to the middle east - Dubai, Egypt (Cairo/Luxor/Nile and more to come as we plan our trip) and Jordan (Amman, Petra, Wadi Rum, plus others I'm sure) from Australia. Basically the theme is in that region. Early plan would be Australia (Brisbane) - Dubai - Egypt - Jordan - Australia. Our focus is nature and 'historical built environment' (old buildings ...) with the odd bit of shopping and vehicle culture (Dubai) thrown in ...

Part of the early planning is working out how to travel between these locations. Getting from Dubai to Cairo I can book some "bigger" airlines (Emirates or Qatar for example) but other travel in the region will involve some of the more local carriers that I - as an Australian who has only travelled to Japan, Europe and US - am not familiar with e.g. EgyptAir, Royal Jordanian, Air Cairo, Nile Air.

Knowing very little of these airlines, which would be the 'better' airlines to pick - in terms of reliability, service level etc? My son and I are very tall (between 190 and 200cm) so we need space and am okay to book 'business' (or the equivalent) if better on these carriers (although my recent experiences with JAL and Air France economy on their domestic/short-haul flights was far roomier than any Qantas economy seat I've had ...).

Alternately, would we be silly to route via an external hub in order to get 'bigger' names and 'avoid' local carriers - e.g. to get from Egypt to Jordan rather than take a direct flight on a smaller carrier, we fly Qatar to Doha from Cairo and then Doha to Amman afterwards. More expensive of course (more flights), involves some backtracking and soaks up more time (but then again, we could add a couple of days in Doha onto our trip ...).

Sorry if the question sounds weird, hopefully it makes sense?

On your itinerary I would be ‘open jawing’ the ticket… so Australi-Dubai-Cairo as one way, and Amman-Dubai-Australia as the other. You can do this on a single carrier, Emirates. You then put a stopover in dubai either outbound or return.

A return ticket of that nature should be cheaper than buying Australia dubai, then dubai to cairo, then aman back to cairo atc as one ways.

That means you only have a single flight left to buy… Cairo-Aman. Both Egyptair and Royal Jordanian fly it. Egypt air is star alliance, Royal Jordanian is oneworld. So if you have qantas status, fly RJ.

For such a short flight I’d take your flight based on departure time and fare. Royal jordanian is probably a slightly better carrier though.

 

[DionM]

Thank you both for your comments. I'm 200cm, my kids are 190 (12 year old!) and 196cm so we need room and it's always a worry with unknown carriers. I have QF status so maybe RJ is the choice.

I was going to look at open jaw tickets. We may also be adding a stopover in India on the way back, still roughing things out.

 

[Seat0B]

I’ve flown RJ Dubai-Amman-Dubai before and it was quite good. Its also good if you have QF status as you get the usual luggage, lounge and check in privileges.

 

[Seat0B]

Our son, who lives in the UAE, also recommends FlyDubai if you want a low cost carrier option. But this might not suit your family given your long legs!

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Thank you both for your comments. I'm 200cm, my kids are 190 (12 year old!) and 196cm so we need room and it's always a worry with unknown carriers. I have QF status so maybe RJ is the choice.

I was going to look at open jaw tickets. We may also be adding a stopover in India on the way back, still roughing things out.

That’s probably going to push the cost right up as there’s no logical airline to do that on a round trip basis… unless you find some sort of EK/QF combo via India… which I suspect doesn’t exist.

 

[DionM]

I’ve flown RJ Dubai-Amman-Dubai before and it was quite good. Its also good if you have QF status as you get the usual luggage, lounge and check in privileges.

By the time we fly my wife or I may have achieved Gold, so that's something to keep in mind (we are almost at lifetime silver, but of course that gives you nothing extra really).

Our son, who lives in the UAE, also recommends FlyDubai if you want a low cost carrier option. But this might not suit your family given your long legs!

Yeah I'm always cautious of discount carriers. When we had some recent internal Europe flights it is why we flew Air France rather than RyanAir / Wizz etc because I couldn't take the legroom risk. AF was actually very room in economy compared to Qantas / Virgin.

That’s probably going to push the cost right up as there’s no logical airline to do that on a round trip basis… unless you find some sort of EK/QF combo via India… which I suspect doesn’t exist.

Yeah it's not a certainty, just something to play around with. I'm still debating whether we do this trip this year but most likely will push it to next year given conflict in the region and US politics. So plenty of time to tweak and play with itineraries.

 

[jbmarshall90]

Would recommend an open jaw ticket.

Have flown Egypt air internally within Egypt and from Cairo to Amman - all in business. Would recommend.

Some of the internal flights were on old 737’s which we configured back when oil was cheap - you could never reach the seat in front. Newer airbus to Amman was fantastic with my own large entertainment screen - you’ll find that aircraft, seat size better than Qantas or Virgin quite easily.