Emirates Economy Class Review: What’s Economy Like?

Emirates Economy Class Review

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What’s it like to fly long-haul in Emirates Economy Class?

We flew round-trip from Seattle to Africa with Emirates.

Here, we give you the honest scoop in our Emirates Economy Class review.

Emirates Economy Class Review
An Emirates plane on the tarmac

Featured reader comments and questions

“Wow… Thank you for this review. I found it helpful. I am traveling in a few days on an Emirates Economy class flight and this is informative. Thank you!”

~ Hellen

“This was my first experience with Emirates Airlines, when I flew from Delhi to LA in September. The flight was good, the crew members were good and most of the services were good.

But I was disappointed that they didn’t provide proper wheelchair service in LA…”

~ Sangita

“Do they allow seat extensions for kids? I’m flying from Dubai to Seattle with a toddler.”

~ Jan

Emirates flights through Dubai

Emirates Economy Class Review: What's it like to fly Economy Class with Emirates?
Meet your flight team!

The world’s fourth largest airline, Emirates flies to some 160 destinations around the world, including Asia, Europe, North America, the Middle East and Africa.

Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is the airline’s hub. (There are 7 Emirates in the UAE; Dubai is probably the most well-known.)

From North America, Emirates flies to Dubai from several major cities, including Boston, Chicago, Seattle and Toronto.

On our trip to Africa, we flew Economy on Emirates from Seattle to Dubai, then on to Lusaka, Zambia. (In Lusaka, we flew to Mfuwe for our walking safari in Zambia’s South Luangwa National Park.)

On the return, we flew from Cape Town to Seattle via Dubai, also in Economy.

Both ways, we stayed overnight at Emirates’ Dubai Airport transit hotel in Terminal 3 to break up the long trip – highly recommended!

Emirates’ Boeing 777 seating plan

Emirates flies Boeing 777-300ER planes for the 14-1/2 hour flights between Seattle and Dubai.
Planes for the 14-1/2 hour flights between Seattle and Dubai are Boeing 777-300s

Emirates currently operates two types of airplanes, the Boeing 777 and the Airbus A380.

Emirates’ Seattle to Dubai planes are Boeing 777-300ERs

Economy Class seats are configured 3-4-3.

If you get stuck in a middle seat in the middle row of four seats, you’re probably going to feel a bit confined.

We prefer a 3-3-3 configuration, which makes the cabin feel less crowded. Also, the 3-4-3 configuration on the Boeing 777-300ER means the seats are narrower than if laid out 3-3-3.

But, sigh… The more spacious 3-3-3 configuration seems to be a thing of the past, as airlines shift to a 3-4-3 layout in Economy.

 Emirates' Economy Class seats are configured 3-4-3 on the 777-300ERs
Emirates Economy Class seats are configured 3-4-3 on the 777-300ERs

For our flight from Seattle, the Emirates gate agent kindly gave us an aisle and a window seat and blocked off the middle seat, so we had three seats between the two of us.

That helped make the 14-½ hour night flight more comfortable. (Of course, if the flight is full, you’re unlikely to get a free middle seat between you.)

The seats offered decent legroom (perhaps 32 inches?) and reclined quite a bit.

Everyone has to recline though, or you feel squished with the seat in front of you right in your face.

The interior of the planes looked as if they had been upgraded – the bathrooms had wooden cupboards and accents.

When the cabin lights were turned off, twinkling stars shone on the ceiling, and the soft “mood” lighting turned from pink to mauve and aqua hues.

Boeing 777-300ER Emirates seating

Emirates has three different layouts for their 777-300ERs (see here).

For the best seats on Emirates’ 777-300ER planes (latest version), see SeatGuru; you can also check the other two layouts on SeatGuru too.

Emirates Economy amenity kits

The free Emirates Economy amenity kit includes socks, toothbrush and toothpaste, ear plugs and a sleeping mask.
The free Emirates Economy amenity kit includes socks, toothbrush and toothpaste, ear plugs and a sleeping mask

Everyone in Economy Class was given red-and-white amenity bags with socks, eye masks, ear plugs and toothbrush/toothpaste.

And we received a large-sized blanket and pillow.

Emirates Economy Class food

What’s the food in Emirates Economy Class like? 

We found our meals quite tasty.

Dinner

For example, on the night flight from Seattle to Dubai, the Emirates economy menu offered a choice for the dinner entrée (we chose lamb kofta with rice). A fresh salad (no limp brown leaves) accompanied that.

We also had three choices of red wines – two French and one Spanish. Cutlery was metal; we didn’t have to saw away with plastic knives.

Mid-flight, a pizza service was offered.

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Breakfast

Before arriving in Dubai, we received a hot egg-and-cheese omelette.

On the next leg from Dubai to Lusaka (6-½ hours), we had another breakfast – this time, a cold egg-salad croissant and fruit salad for a light breakfast.

Lunch

Emirates Economy Class food
Our hot lunch in Economy Class on our return flight from Cape Town to Dubai

Later, on the same flight, we were offered a hot lunch (a choice of beef in mushroom sauce with herbed polenta and stir-fried tomatoes, or creole chicken in tomato sauce with steamed rice and vegetables), accompanied by potato salad with green beans.

Dessert was apple upside-down cake with vanilla sauce.

Emirates inflight entertainment

Emirates Airlines inflight entertainment
Nice earphones! Too bad the sound through one ear didn’t work…

We give high marks to Emirates ICE entertainment system, which the airline is quite proud of. (ICE stands for information, communication and entertainment.)

You can watch the news, send emails and watch movies.

It’s apparently the best in the world, with 4,000 channels, including some 1,000 movies. In the Skytrax “World Airline Awards,” Emirates has been named the airline with the best inflight entertainment for the past 15 years.

We liked the big screens (almost as wide as the seat back in front) and big cushioned earphones (not the little buds that fall out of your ears).

Unfortunately, the sound streaming into one ear was broken for both of us on one of our flights – so we had to listen to our blockbusters lopsidedly.

Emirates baggage allowance

Emirates Economy carry-on allowance

As an Economy passenger, you can only take one piece of carry-on baggage onboard.

For some reason, Middle Eastern airlines have strict carry-on baggage limits for Economy passengers.

When we flew Economy Class on Qatar Airways, we also discovered (to our chagrin) that we couldn’t take the same rollaways and backpacks allowed on North American airlines.

There’s enough room in the overhead bins and under the seats on both Emirates and Qatar, so we don’t really understand why these airlines don’t have the same standards.

Emirates carry-on baggage allowance for Economy passengers

Your carry-on bag can’t be heavier than 15 pounds (7 kg).

Your bag also cannot be larger than 21.6 x 15 x 8.6 inches (55 x 38 x 22 cm).

For more information on this, see the airline’s cabin baggage rules.

Only Emirates Business Class and First Class passengers are allowed to take two pieces of carry-on luggage.

Emirates Checked Luggage Allowance

In Economy, you can check one or two bags (depending on the fare), no heavier than 50 pounds (23 kg) each.

Other Emirates Airlines’ reviews (safety and comfort)

Emirates flies both Boeing 777 and Airbus A380 planes
Emirates flies both Boeing 777 and Airbus A380 planes

Emirates has a good reputation.

It ranks among the world’s safest airlines for 2025 (sharing the #3 spot with Cathay Pacific and Qatar Airways).

As for service and comfort, it has a 4-star airline rating (according to SkyTrax) for things like food and seats – keeping company with Air France, Air Canada, Air New Zealand, British Airways and other major airlines, which also have 4-star ratings.

Emirates Economy Class review: Bottom line?

We were impressed with our Emirates Airlines Economy Class flights.

For the most part, it was a comfortable experience (in as much as flying economy can be called “comfortable”).

Our return flight connections are where we downgrade our Emirates review.

We had a seriously long (9+ hour) layover in Seattle on our return home.

We hadn’t planned on that. When we booked our tickets, our Seattle layover was going to be 3 hours (before the final 30-minute hop home to Victoria, Canada).

Our flights were changed on us unfortunately, after we’d booked and paid – resulting in this 9+ hour layover – and Emirates wouldn’t put us on an earlier flight home from Seattle because that was a non-partner airline.

Needless to say, we were very unhappy about this…


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Review of Emirates Airlines economy class

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We paid full regular fares for our flights, and we haven’t been paid to write this Emirates economy review.


Photo credits: 6 to 8 © Janice and George Mucalov, SandInMySuitcase | Remaining photos Emirates


About the authors

Janice and George Mucalov are award-winning travel journalists who’ve explored all seven continents. They share destination guidesluxury hotel reviewscultural adventurescruise insightstravel tips and more on their luxury travel blog, Sand In My Suitcase. See About.

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36 Comments

  1. Please double check the Economy carry-on bag size. The current (Oct 2023) Qatar website says 50 x 37 x 25 cm (not 55 as mentioned in this article.)

    Otherwise, thank you for the most informative review I found!

    1. You’re right. Qatar has different size limits for carry-on (the sizes you mentioned). But for Emirates, the current size limits are 55 x 38 x 22 cm, as correctly stated in our article :-).

  2. This was my first experience with Emirates Airlines, when I flew from Delhi to LA in September. The flight was good, the crew members were good and most of the services were good.

    But I was disappointed that they didn’t provide proper wheelchair service in LA. I’m a senior citizen with back pain. I was tired after the long journey, and every time I asked for a wheelchair, they said I had to wait another 35 or 45 minutes, or go without one. I ended up waiting about 2 hours.

    I’m hoping they will improve this in future.

    1. Yes, we can see how frustrating your arrival experience must have been – sorry you had to wait so long…

    2. @Sangita Chawla,

      The Montreal Airport arrivals wheelchair service is horrible, horrible, horrible – they have no concerns for you whatsoever.

      But thumbs up to Barcelona’s services, which are top-notch with a smile. Even Bombay’s airport services are top-notch.

      But Montreal Airport has the worst airport wheelchair help.

  3. I have just flown Emirates in economy class for the first time.

    I have flown Air France, Lufthansa, United and Air Canada. But Emirates was top class. I’m now wishing and dreaming of a business class experience!

    All the best.

    1. @Susan Sam,

      I will be flying Emirates next month.

      I have always been a Qatar Airways fan. But they have jacked up their prices and I am hearing bad reviews, so I decided on Emirates for this trip.

    1. Hi Abu,
      Yes, Dubai may be the best known. But there’s also Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Umm al-Qaiwain, Fujairah, Ajman and Ra’s al-Khaimah. We’ve visited Abu Dhabi on a cruise :-).
      Best!

  4. Wow… thank you for this review. I found it helpful. I am traveling in a few days on an Emirates Economy class flight and this is informative. Thank you!

    And thanks for visiting Zambia… That’s my home… And that is where I am traveling to.

    Alright guys. Thank you ☺

    1. Hi Helen!

      Well, thank you for letting us know you found our review helpful! It’s always nice to hear from readers :-).
      And Zambia? You can see we were so taken by the country that we had to visit it twice… Hmmm. Wonder if there’s a third visit in our future?
      Anyway, have a good trip and visit :-).

  5. I went from London to Kochi (India) last January on a return flight with my partner.

    Both my partner and I thought Emirates offered a really good all-round service.

    We found the seating, food and entertainment all to be of a high standard, considering we were travelling economy. My special diet requirements were adequately catered for, along with the selection of complimentary drinks.

    All in all, it was a wonderful start to my vacation. I would have given 4 stars to Emirates, but they lose half a star, as I found some of the cabin crew to be a little poker-faced, or to put it another way, miserable.

    1. Thanks for letting us know about your good Emirates economy flight experience! Sounds like you just wished the service had been delivered with more smiles :-).

  6. My name is Neary and my flight was on January 22, 2020, from Bangkok, Thailand, to Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

    The plane was very nice and comfortable but my flight experience was bad. The flight attendants were so rude! They treated us like we were lower than them. When they gave us the food, they didn’t say anything or smile. They just gave the food with the strong facial expressions.

    Another thing is that 15 minutes before landing, they came and grabbed all the headsets from everyone without asking politely. This is the first time I’d experienced something like this on board. I felt like “Oh my god! What’s wrong???” I have flown many times but no one had treated us before like this.

    I hope you can correct this kind of issue because it wasn’t only me who was unhappy. Other passengers also mentioned this. I just hope all those flight attendants understand that we purchased the flight tickets with our own money. We didn’t ask for free tickets, so they should please do their work politely.

    Thank you.

    1. Sorry to hear you felt the flight attendants were rude. Perhaps they were just very busy and trying to get their job done?

    2. @Janice and George,

      No. It has nothing to do with them being busy.

      That’s how many flight attendants (on many airlines) treat people who are NOT in business or first class. It’s a shame 😔

  7. I hate to say this. But I come from India and have traveled on quite a few airlines to Europe, Turkey, Middle East and the U.S., and I can say with certainty that Emirates have gone from good-to-bad-to-worst…

    They have become ruthless when it comes to seating, baggage policies, food and alterations to the ticket dates.

    For example, my 5-year-old son’s name wasn’t spelled correctly on the ticket and I had to cancel my flight altogether because they wouldn’t make the correction to my son’s name because it “exceeds more than three characters.” They wanted me to re-purchase the same seat for almost double the price.

    This is not just one incident. I took a break in Dubai and they made me pay for my entire luggage all over again, costing me more than $500 in all for “one extra suitcase.”

    And this is besides the fact that they check your hand carry-on for the exact weight. Agents at the time of boarding took away my hand carry-on. If you exceed it by even by a pound or two, they make you pay for it, as my friend ended up paying for it, besides buying an extra bag…

    1. Sorry to hear about your unhappiness with the airline!

      We’ve heard of other cases with other airlines about how your name on the ticket must be spelled correctly — or you could be denied boarding. Seems to be a universal rule. So it’s a word of caution to always check your ticket after issue and to call the airline immediately if you notice any discrepancies.

      And, yes, Emirates is very strict with the weight limit for the carry-on bag. And their weight limit is way less than other major airlines like British Airways, Air Canada, etc. We were caught by this too, so we sympathize :-). Again, a cautionary note to always check the baggage limits before flying — and don’t assume all airlines have the same limits.

      Ahhh, the joys of flying these days :-).

  8. I’ve flown many years with Emirates – currently Silver Class status. Not that this has any relevance really for myself, as I fly business class on business matters twice or more a year. This is generally with Emirates as my first preference.

    I flew recently with my family from JHB to Dubai to Hamburg and return… There were 4 of us, both my children being classified as adults, therefore from a cost perspective, we decided to fly economy.

    The problem in question, which I’m not at all satisfied about, is an incident that took place on the route from Dubai to Johannesburg. In a nutshell, a male crew member treated me with total disrespect after my daughter asked how full the flight was and I took a picture on my iPhone to show her. He yelled to me at the top of his voice to delete the photo, which I did, and was extremely rude to me. As I had my family with me, I decided not to challenge the cabin steward at the time of the incident, but rather to take this matter forward with a senior representative locally.

    At 65, I will not be treated and spoken to by a person in such a tone and disrespect in front of my family, with all the passengers around watching the show.

    I’m a senior executive at a large corporate company, where we have many execs flying Emirates. Should I not receive a sensible response to this incident, I personally will not bother to fly Emirates and furthermore I will consider other alternative means of air travel.

    Apologies for this, but you should understand that in the spirit of Christmas and in the presence of my family, I was very embarrassed and disappointed.

    I’m looking forward to receiving a favorable response where further particulars can be presented.

    Yours sincerely.

    1. We are sorry to hear about your embarrassment on your recent Emirates Airlines flight. As we are travel writers (not customer service for Emirates), we took the liberty of shortening your comments a bit here.

      You should raise your concerns with Emirates directly :-). Emirates has a reputation for excellent in-flight service. They are sure to be receptive to your complaint; no airline wants their staff to act rudely toward passengers.

      Best wishes!

  9. Do you have the latest review of Etihad? Heard they revamped their economy class meals… how about their Business Class, any chance of getting an upgrade?

  10. Hello!

    Thanks for sharing this with us! I have a silly question. I flew many times with different companies. Some of them provided kits like this, pillows and blankets and let you keep them. Is this the case of Emirates economy class as well? Thanks!

    1. Gosh, we don’t know the answer specifically to this question. Usually the pillows and blankets are too bulky to take them with you on your travels. Perhaps you can phone Emirates toll-free and ask them?

    2. Right, all of the airlines I’ve been on let you keep what was given. Unfortunately at the end of an Emirates economy flight, the flight attendants walk back and forth to collect EVERYTHING back that was given: headphones, blankets, pillows and unused knit kit which includes socks, toothbrushes, eye mask and ear plugs. Hope i was able to answer your question.

  11. Terrific article, and delighted to see people promoting the hotel by virtue of a great customer experience.

    In a different life, I stayed in that hotel more times than could be considered normal, and it’s a brilliant asset – even if only for a couple of hours.

    One other thing – the lounge access there in the hotel is a good alternative to the other, more expensive lounges. It’s called a First Class lounge, and it generally costs around 100-150 AED and is open to non-guests.

    Keep up the great work!

  12. I think my hubby will be totally sold on Emirates economy once he hears about the mid flight pizza service – I like how they try and include small little touches for economy too like proper cutlery & the bag of amenities:)

    1. Hate to say this, but the Asian and Middle East airlines are generally so much better than the North American (and even European) airlines in terms of comfort for long-distance international flights… We just flew back from Paris to Seattle (again Economy) — and we had flimsy plastic cutlery, no socks and mostly carbs for meals (few veggies and no fresh fruit salad).

  13. Hi, I’m Michelle Dela Cerna currently based here in Dubai . I would like to say thank you for sharing your thoughts of Emirates Airlines – very detailed and well written!