With the advent of new aircraft and more cities being connected, ultra-long haul is becoming more common with flights in excess of 15 hours increasing. While this can be a daunting prospect, for those flying in a premium cabin, it’s the perfect chance to be pampered in relative luxury.
Emirates announced its longest A380 route and started flying direct to Los Angeles daily on its flagship aircraft replacing the 777 last December. Scheduled at over 16 hours it gives us plenty time to review the business class product.
Nestling into my flat bed business seat with its vast TV screen and myriad of controls for comfort, I was presented with a drink and my jacket was taken. Before I knew it, we were taxi-ing and taking off. The variety of external cameras on the aircraft make for some fun viewing at this stage on your personal TV.
Once airborne, I was given the usual drink and nuts while our orders were taken. The service comprised of a full dinner, a large selection of smaller bites (to be taken at any time during the flight), followed by a full and well presented breakfast.
The dinner was delicious, the starter of the local Arabic mezze was large, followed by a tomato and coriander shorba. For the main, I opted for the Nilgiri Chicken curry. The individual course service whereby the plates are brought direct to your seat is a nice touch, and sets a high standard.
There was a good choice of desserts, and opting for the black forest chocolate wedge I wasn’t disappointed.
After the dinner service, the lights are dimmed and turndown service is offered. With such a long flight it is still possible to get a full eight hours sleep and watch a few movies too, but I opted to head for the bar, which has its own food service, offering tasty morsels both for dinner and pastries for breakfast. The staff at the bar were chatty and friendly, making sure solo travellers felt looked after.
When it was time to sleep, the bed was comfortable, fully flat, and very private. Opting for one of the window seats meant I was never knocked or disturbed.
Waking up with still eight hours to go, I delved into the in-flight entertainment system – Emirates’ is called ICE – which has so many movies and TV series; even on a 16-hour flight I didn’t get to watch all the favourites I had highlighted. I even made use of the fairly reasonable onboard wifi, which was fast and reliable to check emails and send greetings from above the North Pole. Feeling peckish, I ordered a couple of the mini-meals between the two main services, which were delicious, offering great options such as vegetarian quiches and bowls of chilli con carne.
The breakfast – a full meal in itself – was served around two and a half hours before we landed in Dubai. With a variety of breakfast options available, the tomato omelette I had was moist and tasty, but sadly signalled that our 7,243 mile journey was coming to an end.
To summarise, this long flight passed quickly, and with the plentiful food, drink, entertainment, connectivity and service offerings, I could have easily lasted a few more hours.
Q&A with Robin Padgett, F&B Director, Emirates.
The A380 to LAX is your longest flight. How many meals do you have to prepare for the flight?
On a full flight, Emirates carries 28 First Class meals, 152 business class meals and 854 economy class meals. This includes two separate meals [during the journey]. On top of this, there are a variety of snacks loaded to cater the bar area on the upper deck. In total, Emirates will produce close to 16 million meals in 2014.
How many people prepare the food for service in business class?
Preparation is the key, so is attention to detail. To put it into context, on average it takes 150 man-hours to produce just 76 Business Class meals. That’s the equivalent of one person working almost two months for just the one flight to cater just the business class passengers.
Any other food and beverage statistics that are interesting for this route in particular?
On this flight alone, Emirates loads 16,444 pieces of equipment for the meal service. This includes 131 pieces of different equipment ranging from crockery, glassware to service equipment. Across the fleet, Emirates uses more than 4.5 tonnes of caviar per year and is the world’s largest purchaser of Dom Perignon.
Top 5 longest flights by distance
1. Qantas - Sydney - Dallas Fort Worth, 8,578 miles
2. Delta - Johannesburg - Atlanta, 8,439 miles
3. Emirates - Dubai - Los Angeles, 8,339 miles
4. Saudi Arabian Airlines - Jeddah - Los Angeles, 8,332 miles
5. Qantas - Dallas Fort Worth - Brisbane, 8,303 miles
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