I choose not to fly via Dubai. OK, but why ???

[gmartin010]

I hope this thread doesn't end up anti-semantic...

haha- yes it has gone a bit off track but I am merely stating why I wouldnt want to pass through there. I have an opinion of the place and so do others but its just my personal belief that it is not as 'liberal' as others say it is. Everyone has made some valid points though.

 

[vbap]

haha- yes it has gone a bit off track but I am merely stating why I wouldnt want to pass through there. I have an opinion of the place and so do others but its just my personal belief that it is not as 'liberal' as others say it is. Everyone has made some valid points though.

Well, it's got me doing some lunchtime reading and learning on Jews, Judaism, Israel, etc. !

 

[rakeman]

I chose to fly through Singapore to my trip to LHR this year instead of Dubai for the very simple reason I know Singapore and it's airport. I've traveled through it and to it several times and I'm familiar with it. I'm sure Dubai is a great place, but I don't know it as well as Singapore. I'm speaking of course about transfers through the airport. I can understand others who are uncomfortable traveling through a country with limited freedoms.

 

[SeatBackForward]

I chose to fly through Singapore to my trip to LHR this year instead of Dubai for the very simple reason I know Singapore and it's airport. I've traveled through it and to it several times and I'm familiar with it. I'm sure Dubai is a great place, but I don't know it as well as Singapore. I'm speaking of course about transfers through the airport. I can understand others who are uncomfortable traveling through a country with limited freedoms.

Would that be Singapore or Dubai?

 

[ajw373]

Saying the UAE is very open and liberal in comparison to some of the other countries mentioned does not mean anything. The country is just as bad as all the others mentioned when it comes to Jewish passengers. The UAE and Saudi Arabia are similar (SA being slightly more conservative) but Delta Airlines is about to add Saudi Arabian Airlines to its SkyTeam Alliance of partnering companies and would require Delta to ban Jews and holders of Israeli passports from boarding flights to Saudi Arabia (Rabbi Jason Miller: Delta Adopts Saudi Arabian Airlines' No Jew Policy).

Again in response to the original question posed, why would any Jew willingly fly through Dubai which is openly anti-semitic.

Israel is not much better either with their hatred of Arabs even the ones who's land they share. Been there several times and always get grilled by security leaving about contact with Arabs. Indeed I recall one trip where I got a hotel taxi from east Jerusalem that was shock horror driven by an Arab. At the security gate outdide the airport he was taken away for a 30minute interview whilst I copped a grilling in the taxi about Arabs I have been in contact with. I mean to say all the guy was doing is his job which was taking meto thr airport, he clearly wasn't flying. Then I get to the airport and get grilled again whilst I saw many Arab passengers getting taken away for a special "security screening". As they say it is for our security. Well not. So what does that make Israel? Looks like tit for tat to me.

 

[dot]

Saying the UAE is very open and liberal in comparison to some of the other countries mentioned does not mean anything. The country is just as bad as all the others mentioned when it comes to Jewish passengers. The UAE and Saudi Arabia are similar (SA being slightly more conservative) but Delta Airlines is about to add Saudi Arabian Airlines to its SkyTeam Alliance of partnering companies and would require Delta to ban Jews and holders of Israeli passports from boarding flights to Saudi Arabia (Rabbi Jason Miller: Delta Adopts Saudi Arabian Airlines' No Jew Policy).

Again in response to the original question posed, why would any Jew willingly fly through Dubai which is openly anti-semitic.

Have you even been to Saudi Arabia or the UAE? To say that the UAE is similar to Saudi Arabia is like saying that Intercourse Pennsylvania is similar to New York City. I was in both Riyahd and Dubai during Ramadan last year - and from my personal experience, your coining of the term "slightly more conservative" is ridiculous in the extreme. The two cities/countries are like chalk and cheese. The UAE and Dubai in particular is very western and not disimilar to our two closest Muslim neighbours - Indonesia and Malaysia in terms of acceptance of other faiths and openness.

SA on the other hand will refuse you entry just for having visited Israel, they will jail you for eating in daylight hours during Ramadan, they will jail you for sitting in the family section of a food court if you're a single male, they have no cinemas, they wont let women drive etc etc.

The UAE is not anti-semetic - they are Anti-Israel. Jews are free to enter the country, to work there, to live there to take up residency just the same as I am as a Christian.

As for Saudi Airlines joining the Skyteam, I don't know what the relevance is to the topic, but I think you would find that they already had that policy in place. An Israeli passport holder will not be given permission to enter Saudi Arabia regardless of what carrier transports them - the cost of transporting a pax who is refused entry due to visa/entry conditions is born by the airline that transported them, so it makes sense that DL would refuse boarding a Israeli passport holder (or someone with Israeli stamps in their passport) - just as any other airline would. That is why during the passport check at check-in, the agent will look for a relevant visa for your destination country, particularly if the destination country has very strict visa requirements (such as SA, Russia, China etc). That way, the airline (any international airline) can (and will) refuse you boarding instead of having to foot the bill to return you to your departure point.

 

[Pushka]

Israel is not much better either with their hatred of Arabs even the ones who's land they share. .

True. But Qantas doesn't route through Israel as the only way to Europe. Isn't this routing the crux of the problem, not which countries have issues with other nationalities ?

 

[dajop]

SA on the other hand will refuse you entry just for having visited Israel

I also recall reading that they won't issue visas to those who provide no religious affiliations on their visa application. No atheists either.

 

[simongr]

True. But Qantas doesn't route through Israel as the only way to Europe. Isn't this routing the crux of the problem, not which countries have issues with other nationalities ?

Yes but there is a reasonable amount of "I won't transit through DXB because of their terrible treatment of Jews" which is a little hypocritical. I appreciate that comparing SIN with Iran is a bit off but if you want to compare hubs then SIN is not much more open than UAE - especially in the area of homosexuality where they are broadly aligned. People saying they will route through SIN due to the rules in DXB around homosexuality are a bit deluded given the similarity of rules in the two countries.

ajw makes the best argument for not wanting to route through DXB - the flight schedule. Personally it wouldn't make much difference. Flying via SIN I would sleep to SIN, have some champers in the lounge in SIN and maybe a couple of drinks on board, sleep for another four hours and be awake the remainder of the flight into LHR. Do a full day in the UK and be asleep by 9PM.

 

[Pushka]

Yes but there is a reasonable amount of "I won't transit through DXB because of their terrible treatment of Jews" which is a little hypocritical. I appreciate that comparing SIN with Iran is a bit off but if you want to compare hubs then SIN is not much more open than UAE - especially in the area of homosexuality where they are broadly aligned. People saying they will route through SIN due to the rules in DXB around homosexuality are a bit deluded given the similarity of rules in the two countries.

ajw makes the best argument for not wanting to route through DXB - the flight schedule. Personally it wouldn't make much difference. Flying via SIN I would sleep to SIN, have some champers in the lounge in SIN and maybe a couple of drinks on board, sleep for another four hours and be awake the remainder of the flight into LHR. Do a full day in the UK and be asleep by 9PM.

Yes, but what's the point of discussing what Israel does when Qantas doesn't use it as a hub?

I think Singapore is more open to cultural differences than Dubai and its easy to determine what you can and can't do in public. And that things which might land you in trouble are pretty much the same as here.

Having said that for Adelaide I much prefer the routing through Dubai.

 

[dot]

I also recall reading that they won't issue visas to those who provide no religious affiliations on their visa application. No atheists either.

Correct for Saudi Arabia - no religion specified = no entry

 

[dajop]

. I appreciate that comparing SIN with Iran is a bit off but if you want to compare hubs then SIN is not much more open than UAE - especially in the area of homosexuality where they are broadly aligned. People saying they will route through SIN due to the rules in DXB around homosexuality are a bit deluded given the similarity of rules in the two countries.

Whilst the rules are indeed similar, without going into much research I'm pretty sure the level of enforcement and associated penalties are somewhat different. Also governments tolerance of openly visible gay bars and the like is very different between the two places (from what I hard the gay scene in DXB is more underground, in SIN it's out in the open).

 

[MelUser]

For me HK is the nicest place to transit through. If you have a day you can leave the airport - passport control people are very friendly - probably friendliest I have found anywhere in the world.

Transiting through Dubai is not for me so the decision has seen my flights move to CX and AY although I have a QF flight to BKK to join up with AY. All USA travel will remain with QF. In some ways I wish that QF had done a deal with CX and made HK their hub. I am surprised that there are so few QF codeshares with CX given that they are oneworld friends.

Anyway time will tell - it will be interesting to see whether those paying to travel in J will follow QF/EK via DXB or move their business to flights via Asia. This may actually benefit those flying through to LHR on QF and going for points upgrades.

 

[vbap]

ajw makes the best argument for not wanting to route through DXB - the flight schedule. Personally it wouldn't make much difference. Flying via SIN I would sleep to SIN, have some champers in the lounge in SIN and maybe a couple of drinks on board, sleep for another four hours and be awake the remainder of the flight into LHR. Do a full day in the UK and be asleep by 9PM.

I was quite settled with the SIN routing and got used to to have the short flight on the leg that departs in the afternoon/early evening, and have the longer flight on the leg that departs late evening.

Since the departure times from MEL and FRA haven't really changed since the switch-over, (Depart MEL around 15:30, Depart FRA around 22:30) I found it difficult to get sleep on my recent flights via DXB. I had to fly to Germany during the transition of QF5/6 - so I went to Europe via SIN and returned via DXB. And the EK flight from FRA to DXB I kept snoozing rather than proper sleep. That snoozing was enough to prevent me having real sleep on the DXB-MEL leg.

#FirstWorldProblems ...

 

[medhead]

The penalty in SIN is up to 2 years in prison for males. L is not illegal. According to Wikipedia but apparently the law is generally not enforced.

 

[Jack_OC]

Sorry Pushka, but it is simply not true to say that things that may land you in trouble in Singapore are pretty much the same as in AUS. Many people seem to assume that is the case, but it's not.

As I pointed out previously, there are objective measures of the relative levels of freedom in different countries and Singapore scores poorly.

A tourist in Singapore generally won't be impacted by their restrictive laws and Draconian punishments, but the same is largely true of UAE.

 

[simongr]

For me HK is the nicest place to transit through. If you have a day you can leave the airport - passport control people are very friendly - probably friendliest I have found anywhere in the world.

I agree toally on this - I would always prefer to fly via HKG - two more similar length of flights and an awesome airport to transit. Added benefit of many more OW partner options.

 

[SQ421]

The fact that so many people are chosing to not fly via DXB seems like a good enough reason to do just that.

And I would, if I weren't partial to CX longhaul J

 

[Pushka]

Sorry Pushka, but it is simply not true to say that things that may land you in trouble in Singapore are pretty much the same as in AUS. Many people seem to assume that is the case, but it's not.

As I pointed out previously, there are objective measures of the relative levels of freedom in different countries and Singapore scores poorly.

A tourist in Singapore generally won't be impacted by their restrictive laws and Draconian punishments, but the same is largely true of UAE.

Sorry but don't agree. Could you give an example of something you might do in Singapore that would unexpectedly land you in trouble?

I wouldn't want to specify a religion so I wouldn't even get a visa to DBX it seems. That is not the case in Singapore.

 

[SeatBackForward]

Sorry but don't agree. Could you give an example of something you might do in Singapore that would unexpectedly land you in trouble?

I wouldn't want to specify a religion so I wouldn't even get a visa to DBX it seems. That is not the case in Singapore.

Specifying a religion was in reference to KSA, not the UAE.