Flying with Emirates, like a lot of airlines, can veer between the Good, the Bad and plain Fugly. I exclude BA from that generalisation as they are nailed on ugly, like a lovechild spawned by Gollum & Donatella Versace. The Good + Emirates fly out of Manchester and that means if I wellie it up the motorway I can get from my drive to their check in desk in less the 45 minutes. + Their check in is nearly always swift and painless. They also have one of the best lounges and their food is always fresh and plentiful but, best of all, Macadamia nuts and Chambubbly on tap. + Using Manchester also means I can avoid the complete cock up that is Heathrow and get straight in to Dubai in one hop. + Once you reached Gold member level Emirates provide a free Limousine to and from the airport (within 50 miles) The Bad - Their main hub, Dubai airport is a tram smash. Always chaotic and even the Marhaba welcome service is crap. Everything is over priced and the lounges are well past their sell by date. Qatar Airways hub in Doha makes Dubai look positively medieval although Emirates have opened their new A380 lounge last week. I will reserve judgement until next time through. The Fugly - I recently took the buy 'Business Class and get free upgrade to First' deal from Manchester to Singapore and, to be fair, it was the latest A380 from Manchester to Dubai (7 hours) which puts you in a cabin all to yourself (see pics) with no expenses spared (inc' Bulgari toilet bag & JimJams) but the catch was the connecting and longer follow on flight from Dubai onwards was a First class cabin agreed but, on one of the oldest planes in their fleet. What a let down. The so called first class seats were crap and did not convert to flat or even close. The EVEN FUGLIER ... - On boarding the flight in Manchester they offered to hang up my favourite Musto coat (see pic) for me. When I disembarked in Dubai I forgot my coat (it WAS hot!) had been taken by the cabin crew and they failed to remember to hand it back to me !! By the time I realised I was already in the terminal with no route back to the cabin so I went straight to the customer services and informed them and they told me I could collect on my return leg. Problem was that when I came back through a few days later they said that they had been unable to locate it and that they were not willing to replace it. WOT!! My €379.00 Evolution Gore-Tex Softshell !! Hold me down please!! I went ballistic but to no avail and tried the usual complaints route but got the standard corporate brush off. Caveat emptor indeed. read more