I took a $5,000 business class flight on Emirates Airlines — here's why it's worth every cent
- I flew from New York City to Milan on Emirates in business class for a business trip.
- Tickets for this flight usually start at around $5000.
- The price of the ticket includes a ride to the airport and champagne and snacks in the airline's lounge before boarding.
- Business and first class passengers get to sit a level above economy passengers, which made boarding much better than usual.
- While I was in the air, I enjoyed fancy meals and cocktails, a full bed, and great entertainment.
Before September 2016, I was good at flying. I accepted whatever somewhat sticky, very cramped, amenity-free seat any airline would sell me at the lowest fare, transporting me from my home in New York City to wherever in the world I wanted to go, safely. That was good enough.
I'd flown first class, once, over a decade ago, on a family trip to Mexico during which we were re-booked on a later flight but with upgraded seats. I remember eating real food off a real porcelain plate, bragging a little about being a first class passenger. That memory has since faded.
But then, for a business trip, I was booked on Emirates in business class, from New York's JFK to Milan's MXP. Depending on timing, tickets for this flight start at $5000, which seemed exorbitant to me, until I added up the value of the entire experience. It would later become clear to me that this experience would ruin me for regular-people air travel.
I got a ride to the airport and enjoyed champagne and snacks in the lounge before boarding.
The experience started before I even left my apartment, when a black car pulled up outside my house and the driver helped me with my luggage and unloaded me at the airport, an amenity all Emirates Business & First Class passengers can take advantage of. Considering a ride to the airport can cost upwards of $100, depending on traffic, the cost of the ticket was already beginning to feel worthwhile.
At the airport, I checked in, quickly went through security and arrived at the Emirates lounge, which, the desk attendant apologized, did not connect directly to the plane, though most of their lounges do. That was fine with me.
A serene stillness enveloped the lounge, dissipating any rollerboard-fueled, jetlagged mania that pretty much defined the rest of the international terminal outside the doors of the lounge. I helped myself to a bowl of soup, a glass of champagne, and a plate (okay, two plates) of hot food and assorted cheeses from the buffet in the time before my flight boarded. The WiFi was solid, the snacks to accompany the full bar of top shelf spirits were excellent, and I got more work done in a lounge armchair than I had all day leading up to my flight. Considering the time I otherwise would have wasted perusing a convenience-slash-bookstore and fighting for an outlet at the gate, the productive pre-flight hours knocked a few hundred more dollars off my flight's exorbitant cost.
Business and first class passengers sit a floor above economy passengers, which made boarding a much better experience than usual.
And then, we boarded. A lounge announcement encouraged passengers on my flight to head to our nearby gate, where we calmly walked across the jet bridge like the royalty of one of America's lowest-rated airports. There was no pushing, no stifled groaning from passengers getting their last audible moans out to a crowd before squishing into a middle seat. In fact, no one in this boarding group had a middle seat.
A flight attendant guided me to my window seat, asked if I wanted champagne and warm nuts or water (I wanted all of them, obviously) and helped me with my carry on and coat. If only I'd known that boarding a plane could be nicer than getting seated at a fancy restaurant in Manhattan on a weeknight, I would have been traveling like this all along. That is, if I could afford to.
As we waited for the hundreds of Milan-bound passengers to board below us (literally below us — the double decker plane made me feel like Kate Winslet aboard the actually nice part of the Titanic while fellow travelers were left to suffer in the lower decks), we business and first classers snacked on our warm (they were really toasty!) nuts, sipped our champagne from real glasses, and scanned through the entertainment touch screens mounted in our mini-compounds, complete with privacy walls.
My in-flight experience included two meals, cocktails, a full bed, and plenty of entertainment options.
I flipped through the menu, which offered welcome cocktails, a three-course dinner and a two-course lighter meal before we landed, and as I contemplated whether I wanted lamb or chicken for my second dinner, a flight attendant supplied me with a Bulgari amenity kit. It was stuffed with the type of mini treasures you usually have to not-so-secretly hoard-steal from hotels, only designer branded and all tucked neatly in a chic fabric pouch, complete with a plush eye mask and sleep socks. I stored it in my personal cubby, which was stocked with fresh juices, sodas, and bottled water. A quick run to the bathroom before the plane took off revealed fresh roses in the lavatory, and I started contemplating get rich quick schemes to ensure I never had to travel any other way again.
Once we were in the air, the bar in the back of the upper level of the plane opened, doling out finger sandwiches and more snacks. And though Jennifer Aniston was not back there sipping a Chardonnay, the in-flight glory she portrayed on the Emirates commercials was in tact. I am not famous nor rich, but the in-air staff treated me, and seemingly every passenger, like we were., Though I felt like I and my well-worn Diane Von Furstenberg silk travel pants paired with J. Crew turtleneck pretty much negated any chance I had at fitting in with the business class crowd, the flight attendants never made me feel like I didn't belong.
Instead of pushing an obnoxious cart full of pre-heated trays down the aisle, flight attendants passed by each seat to jot down meal orders, laying down a white tablecloth over our pull-out tray before the feast was served. This was airline pampering at its best.
When I was ready to sleep, a flight attendant arranged a light mattress, pillow, and blankets on my seat, which transformed into a flat, dorm-like bed with the push of a button, a type of in-air turndown service I had no idea existed. I wish I could say I slept well, but with all the not just edible, but genuinely tasty food (on real plates!), endless stream of fine wines, and recently-released movies, as well as shows I'd neglected to binge watch over the summer, sleep seemed out of the question. I mean, how could I sleep through the best flight experience of my life?
No flight experience I have in the future will ever live up to this one.
By the time we landed the next morning in Italy, I was genuinely disappointed to have to deplane, a strange feeling I'd never experienced in my years of frequent travel. Was it possible — was this flight not just tolerable, but enjoyable?
The return trip offered similar amenities, only more pasta, espresso, and Italian snacks in the pre-boarding lounge, which did board directly to the upper level of the plane, saving time and the stress of navigating through a foreign airport. This was it, there was no other acceptable way to travel. Luckily (okay, beyond luckily, sorry), I was booked on the same flight the following month for a conference, and I relieved all the glory of being treated like traveling royalty the entire time I was in transit. My expectations were high, and they were met, but I knew this streak couldn't last.
Since those four separate flights, I have yet to fly Emirates (in any class) again, but knowing how actually enjoyable air travel can be completely spoiled me for any future flights. I went from a person totally okay with curling up in my leggings and sweatshirt into a tiny ball entertained by pre-loaded podcasts for an entire flight to a traveler constantly comparing the lack of amenities, professionalism, and comfort of any seat on any airline to the two roundtrip business class flights I took on Emirates.
And while I wouldn't have traded that mode of transportation to get me to and from Milan, part of me wonders if I should never have boarded that elite, top-of-the aircraft class. Nothing compares.
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