Etihad J (SYD-LHR-SYD)

[haydensydney]

My partner and I had to travel to Europe as I was organising a ten year reunion in Hungary. Etihad seemed like a great option and through Centurion we were able to get reasonably competitive J companion fares (~$6000 ea). After we had booked & paid, Qantas released similarly priced companion fares - we contemplated cancelling and rebooking on QF but decided to stick with EY to "try something different".

Overall, we were fairly disappointed in the EY offering. I will admit that I have high expectations and expect minimum standards when flying in J or F cabins, but even my partner (who is fairly easy to please when it comes to flying) mentioned that this experience overall felt like a premium economy experience. The benefits such as limo service, flatbeds and ability to earn miles/status credits on Velocity were all great, but the service from FA's was consistently below par and there were other annoyances that I will outline below.

SYD-AUH EY455
Dep: 2150
Arr: 0640

Checking in online, it appeared that this was going to be a full flight and we had been allocated the middle two seats in the last row of the business class cabin. As it would turn out, we would be in the last row of the business cabin for 3/4 flights on this trip, meaning we never got to use the "forward" business cabin of the A340-600 aircraft at all.

Check-in was stock standard so nothing exciting to report here. Etihad uses the Air NZ lounge in SYD, so off we went to enjoy a preflight beverage and a snack (as I am a slightly nervous flyer I always like to have a preflight drink or three to calm my nerves).

We boarded through the First/Business class line and we were soon on the aircraft. We were shown to our seats by a FA and my first observation was how cramped the seats appeared. The photos you see online make out as if you have more room. I knew at this point that the flatbed would be tight even though I am not that tall (5'11). We were handed amenity kits, menus and a drink - I opted for the champagne.

The doors were closed - we were departing ontime. A flight time of 14 hours 15 mins as per the captains welcome message - this is going to be a long one! Before we knew it, we were rolling down the runway. I'm not the biggest fan of the A340 and it's never ending run down the runway: you start to wonder if there is much runway left! After what seemed like eternity, we lifted off into the night sky and we were on our way to Abu Dhabi.

EY Observation #1: No IFE during takeoff and landing. This irritated the hell out of me and when I asked a FA about this, they mentioned that the F cabin can start watching the IFE immediately upon entering the aircraft, but J and Y have to wait until the seat belt sign is turned off after takeoff. Why? I see no rationale for this other than to piss-off the guests. Instead I had to watch the mundane moving map for the 20 mins at takeoff and landing. Grr.

EY Observation #2: The Seatbelt sign would stay on for at least 15 minutes after takeoff. I don't know if this is a EY thing, or a A340 thing, but it seems like forever before we could get up and use the bathroom etc.

EY Observation #3: The EY J seats have very very limited storage space. The only room we had consisted of the little gap on the floor between the seat and the aisle: here I stored my bag and shoes. Under the "ottoman" by the PTV's, there is a space but this is used by the seat when you recline into flatbed mode: therefore, there is no space whatsoever. There is a tiny ledge you can use for small things, but this is not even wide enough for a glass. There aren't any "cavities" where you can put watches and small items either, so I thought that this was poor design by EY.

Drink orders were taken but it was about 30 mins before we actually got the drink and the nuts that came with it. I found that EY were very slow with their J service, often taking about 3 hours for all the meal services.

The meal service on this flight was a "Late Supper" or something similar. The food was OK. My partner got a chicken dish as his main, but this turned out to be fatty drumstick and thigh meat which was revolting; he wasn't impressed. My Beef was done quite nicely so I was happy.

 

[Homer]

Nice report as usual Hayden. Keep it coming.

 

[haydensydney]

I didn't take any more pics on this flight, as the lights were dimmed and I didn't want to take any pics with the flash. Not like there was much to take pics of anyway, it was a very long uneventful flight.

EY Observation #4. Limited IFE choices. There are about 25 "New Release" movies (which aren't really New Releases at all!) and about 15 "Classic" movies (all cough). During this one flight, I had drained the IFE of anything interesting meaning a very boring IFE experience on the other three flights.

A note on the middle / couples seats. My partner and I aren't that tall but we still struggled with these middle seats. At all times, my feet were touching the wall under the PTV... in fact, when my head was touching the top of the "pod", my heels were touching the wall at the other end. There was no hope of me stretching out my toes without being a ferral and putting my feet on top of the PTV (which I did once out of frustration). Further, because the seats in lieflat mode aren't exactly straight (it sort of bends inwards half way through - hard to explain), lying on your side is difficult also. When you lie on your side, your sort of locked into position because your feet are locked in at the end and your knees are against the pod wall. Irritating and horrible.

My recommendation for couples is to pick two aisle seats that are more or less opposite each other. This way, you have more room to move and you can utilise some of the aisle way for your knees when your lying on your side and your feet can dangle into the aisle also. Alternatively, just resign to the fact that you won't be doing much bonding and pick and window or aisle. I found the window seats to be best as you have a gap between the wall and your foot compartment.

During the flight, I opted for a "Steak Sandwhich" from the anytime menu which was actually quite nice. The Anytime menu has generally two or three smaller items (such a sandwhich / salad / something else) + normal options such as chips / cookies / baklava / ice-cream. This is a good feature of EY J, and we used it often during our flights when we had nothing to do other than eat or drink

After a long flight we were soon landing into Abu Dhabi. We pulled up at the furtherest most gate from customs and immigration, so we had to haul ourselves through the terminal to get to the lounge (though this was welcome after being cooped up for so long).

EY Observation #5. EY J Lounge in AUH is always PACKED. The two times we were in the lounge, we struggled to find anywhere to sit. The size of the lounge is ridiculous for the amount of J pax that need to use the lounge (I would say that it's half? as small as the QF J lounge in SYD). Once when I tried to use the bathroom, there was a line: only two urinals and two cubicles!!


AUH-LHR EY19
Dep: 0830
Arr: 1315

I didn't take any pics on this flight because I was shattered from the SYD flight. The standout on this flight was one particularly amazing FA called Lorena who was an Australian girl: she was awesome. She took the time to speak with pax and she was very good at answering the call bell. Lorena was the best FA we had on all of the EY flights: the rest were cough and looked overworked, underpaid and appeared to resent their jobs.

This flight was the best flight out of the four that we had on EY: it was shorter, so this was a bonus but Lorena made the experience much better. I also had a window seat, so I felt like I had more room to get some shut eye. I think I slept for an hour, which was enough for me to recharge.

As we were landing into LHR slightly early, we were required to circle above London for about half an hour until we could get a slot to land.

Centurion arranged a "Fast Track" Meet & Greet in LHR which was nice: we had an agent meet us at the gate and take us through an express customs queue (but a different one to normal J / F pax)... it was fairly pointless except for the customs queue, but she did stay with us until we had collected the bags and she even carried some of our bags to the car. Nice, but again - pointless.

 

[malmacdowall]

Nice TR... Thanks.... Totally agree with your observations... I flew EY from MEL to AUH a month ago and found the same... No storage space, not impressed with the J beds and nearly had a knee knocked off by the "trolley dolly"... Average service with very little personality.. Particularly compared to V Australia.... Although our express meals service was good as we took off late evening.... Meals all out under the hour....

 

[pshepvic]

Thanks for this report! We were looking at options for Europe next year, and were considering Etihad, VA, QF, JAL and CX. The list has now been reduced to 4!

Might try for companion fares with JAL or CX - just can't justify the extra for QF I don't think, when JL companion fares are around $6k (although upgrading to F could be nice...)

 

[malmacdowall]

Thanks for this report! We were looking at options for Europe next year, and were considering Etihad, VA, QF, JAL and CX. The list has now been reduced to 4!

Might try for companion fares with JAL or CX - just can't justify the extra for QF I don't think, when JL companion fares are around $6k (although upgrading to F could be nice...)

If you can get VA metal on the long leg, then EY codeshare from AUH to Europe, it's much better....

 

[haydensydney]

Sanderson Hotel, Soho London

We decided to stay at this Morgans group property because of the location (close to the attractions of Soho) and because another friend of ours was staying there the same time as us.

The room was amazing: we opted for the Loft with Balcony, and it suited our needs perfectly. Being smokers, trying to find anything in London with a balcony was difficult, so we were happy we found this one. As we were also entertaining most nights, it was good to have a balcony to enjoy pre-dinner champagne with our guests. The room itself didn't have much seating, so we spent most of our time on the balcony (which was aided by stellar London weather: we had six days sunshine!).

Hotel website

(yes - it's an egg)

 

[haydensydney]

We got a 30% off early bird special, where our tariff ended up around $780 AUD a night - so it wasn't the cheapest hotel, but definitely modern and chic and close to everything. The breakfast downstairs was expensive (about 25 GBP) and wasn't that good but had some nice organic foods such as french yoghurt and fruits.

During our time in London we also went to a couple of great restaurants. The best was Hakkasan where we went twice during our stay: it's cool, funky and fresh and the food was beautiful. We also went to the Ivy, which apparently has a great reputation: the food was nice and the art deco surroundings were fantastic.

London was also great for SHOPPING! The sky high AUD-GBP exchange rate + the VAT refund of 15% meant that the bargains were plentiful. We had a field day in Harrods where we scored a personal shopper to show us around.

View from Room

Thanks to the Royal Wedding, the flags were out and the city looked exceptionally polished!

 

[haydensydney]

British Airways to Budapest
LHR-BUD-LHR (BA866 / BA865) - Economy

We managed to score great cheap seats on British Airways, and I mean really cheap seats. The flights for both of us came to $220 AUD including taxes. We had been considering buying J on BA or J on one of the other european carriers, but when these fares add up to 600-800 GBP the difference was too big to ignore. I wasn't that upset however as the intra-european products on all carriers are cough.

The issue we came across was due to our shopping expeditions in London... BA allow 23Kg baggage allowance for economy passengers so we were over significantly. This meant that in both directions we had to pay 40 GBP for each piece of baggage: still good value considering what we paid for the flights.

I was pleasantly surprised by the A320 aircraft and the legroom: On the outbound we were in Row 23 but returning we scored Row 4 (first row behind J). Both flights were packed and they were both morning departures (8:30am). FA's were charming and put EY's surly crew to shame. Breakfast service consisted of a "breakfast savoury" on both flights, with the Bacon Roll being sensational (but the Salmon & Cream Cheese bagel being revolting).

Overall, very satisfied by my BA experience.

Budapest Accommodation
Serviced Apartment: Entre Amis XXL Apartment

Apartment Website

We decided on getting this 3 bedroom apartment because we were doing a lot of entertaining and needed something with a balcony. We also had two spare bedrooms for guests who needed to crash after late night binge drinking sessions - definitely came in handy.

We tried researching the internet but couldn't find anything nice at all - we threw the challenge to Centurion travel and this was the only place they could find that fit our criteria. The only other options that they gave us were the Presidential suites at a couple of hotels - all over 1500 Euro a night so obviously not for us.

The apartment is next door to the Opera House so is nice and central on the Pest side of Budapest. It is also close to Andrassy u. where you will find expensive boutique shops and theatres/shows.

The apartment was on level 1 and there was no elevator, so we had to haul our luggage up two flights of stairs: not the best, but it's typical in Budapest in these older buildings. The kitchen was huge and there were two bathrooms which was useful. The apartment had high ceilings so sound travelled throughout the apartment, but overall this wasn't much of an issue for us. The apartment had a classical feel about it, which gave it some charm. There were two balconies - a large balcony off the main bedroom and a smaller balcony off the lounge (both balconies were shallow so maybe 1.5m deep).

Free WIFI, Nespresso in the kitchen, TV with Foxtel were all provided complimentary. Cost for the Apartment was 160 Euro a night (cheap as!).

View from apartment balconies

Other Budapest Pics:

 

[haydensydney]

 

[haydensydney]

LHR - AUH EY20
Dep: 2150
Arr: 0640

We flew in on a BA flight from Budapest and had four hours in London for the transfer from Terminal 5 to Terminal 4: not an east feat when your carrying luggage, but we made it. We processed our VAT refunds (they didn't check our stuff BTW), checked in and made our way to the Lounge.

EY Observation #6: Inconsistency with lounges. The London EY lounge was AMAZING and was miles ahead of the flagship lounge in AUH. The food options were bountiful and were of top quality: restaurant with table service. Service from lounge dragons was exceptional. The six senses spa was amazing. Everything was awesome and is probably the best lounge experience i've had.

About 40 mins prior to the flight we made our way to the gate and jumped on the plane: something looked different. The seating wasn't blue: it was brown. I wasn't too sure if it is the "new" J product, or the "old" J product: does anyone know? Whatever it was, I preferred it. The IFE was closer to my face, so this instantly made it feel bigger. There was room to put stuff and a cavity in the armrest that allowed me to store my watch / phone / wallet.

Overall this was a very comfortable flight but the FA's were the most surly i've come across. They all appeared to be Russian, but I can't confirm as I was only going off the accents: they were cranky and rude. I felt like I was the troublemaker of the flight because I used the call button a few times... the crew were extremely reactive rather than proactive (similar theme with all of my EY flights actually) and nothing happened unless you asked for it.

The food was amazing on this flight, the best out of the four. I had pea soup and scallop pasta for the main.... very nice.

 

[haydensydney]

 

[haydensydney]

Emirates Palace
Palace Suite

Hotel Website

After landing we collected our bags and made our way to our waiting car - the drive to the hotel took about 20-25mins. As we arrived at 1am, the hotel was dead quiet. We were checked in and told that we had been upgraded from the Diamond room to the Palace Suite (Our Centurion benefit was for an upgrade upon availability + late checkout + free lunch).

Overall, this hotel is simply amazing. There wasn't anything that let us down, except for maybe the aircon that didn't go down below 21 degrees (I'm a notorious air con fanatic and can't sleep if the temperature is over 18 degress lol). Other than that, the hotel exceeded expectations on all factors. Room service was amazing and really good portion sizes. The suite was sensational, though the suite was about a 5-10 min walk from reception / restaurants. Hakkasan (the restaurant) is in the hotel by the lobby, so we ate here twice also and the food was just as good as in London. The high tea was awesome too, really worth a go.

 

[haydensydney]

Balcony

View from Balcony

 

[haydensydney]

Amazing buffet for lunch

 

[haydensydney]

Great room service!

Gold leaf coffee?!?

Yum high tea

 

[Timba-Jet]

Nice pics of Budapest and the Danube Hayden. Brings back memories of my quick visit there.

 

[samiam]

The macarons look to die for...

 

[haydensydney]

AUH-SYD EY454
Dep: 2200
Arr: 1810

We waited for our limo to show up and five minutes late, this thing pulls up:

not actual vehicle, but ours was older and coughpier lol

So much for the limo!

We got to the airport and checked-in at the special J/F checkin area. We were greeted by a surly check-in person who seemed to be firmly planted on sh!tty street - we were 2 kg's over our 30kg (ea) limit so he took it upon himself to preach to us that we were over and how lucky we were that he wasn't going to charge us. He then told us that we were lucky because there was an aircraft change (A340-600 to -500) and that 46 people had to be rebooked on Cathay Pacific. If only I was so lucky I thought....

We escaped through security unscathed, but the scene was one I shall not forget: chaos ensued as everyone tried to muscle in on the one working xray machine. Once inside, we made it to the lounge with just enough time to enjoy a G&T and do some quick facebooking... before we knew it we were on the aircraft.

The business class cabin on the A340-600 is split in two, whereas the -500 has one big business class cabin. I was shocked to learn that with the packed 100% loaded J cabin, there were only 2 FA's (28pax) - is this a little on the lean side? Throughout the flight, they were stretched and it was obvious that service standards were left lacking as a consequence. When the CSM came around to meet everyone (which was nice I must say) he mentioned that the A330 can only have 2 staff for a total of 40 pax!! I couldn't believe it.

Unfortunately we were in the middle seats again for this long trip: I wasn't looking forward to the 14 hours in front of us.

Once we were up, it took about 3 hours for the meal service to complete, which is LONG for a 10pm departure. The menu options were cough and everything seemed to run out (three items on this journey when I asked for them)

The two FA's struggled, but I know this wasn't because they couldn't be bothered - they were just overworked. They worked the entire flight, though they did a "one on, one off" break mid-flight: what a shocking shift! It was on this flight that it dawned on me that on EY I had experienced a J product with Y+ service. I feel that the focus is on the F cabin, with the J cabin being lumped with Y in the "lower income to the airline" bucket.

EY Observation #7: Cabin temperature. I found on all flights that the temperature was really hot: I mentioned this to FA's on all flights but there was generally no difference made. On one flight, being the AUH-LHR flight, the temperature dropped after I noticed other guests mentioning the heat to the FA: so I know they do have the power to change the temperature (but probably only do so when more than one person complains).

The space between the seat and the aisle that I mentioned earlier: the only place to store bag and shoes etc

We arrived into SYD about 30 mins before schedule and our bags were waiting for us on the belt once we cleared immigration - and that ends my EY adventure to Europe

Overall, I rate my EY flights as per the following:

Check-in - 6/10
Lounge - 5/10
Board - 7/10
Seat - 4/10
Ambience - 6/10
IFE - 4/10
Crew- 4/10
Food - 6/10
Beverage - 5/10
Amenity - 5/10
Disembark - 7/10
On-time - 10/10

HHS Average* = 5.75 / 10.00

*Hayden's Happiness Score

Next time, I probably won't fly EY.

 

[haydensydney]

The macarons look to die for...

You have no idea

Nice pics of Budapest and the Danube Hayden. Brings back memories of my quick visit there.

Budapest is beautiful: it's classic Europe at it's best, without the gleen and shine of a Western Europe city. It certainly has character.