Emirates Airline's luxury on sky

Emirates' business class shows what high-end pampering is all about.

After you lie down on the 180-degree reclining seat and rejuvenate your senses with a refreshing drink of your choice, don't worry if you've forgotten to carry that book you've long wished to read. Because Emirates' business class gives you enough and more to do during the 3-4 hour flight from an Indian destination to Dubai.

You have 1,300 channels of entertainment, hundreds of video games, a plethora of soap operas, a music collection worth dying for and a good 300 movies to explore. From Disney classics to Arabic cinema, from Bollywood to vintage sporting action, from Frank Sinatra to Black Eyed Peas, I struggled to choose and pack in the maximum.

Simultaneously, my thoughts keep returning to the time spent in Dubai, a city which mesmerised me with its urbane charm and chic landscape.

With the ICE (Information-Communication-Entertainment) system onboard allowing me to plug in the USB device to view the pictures I had clicked in the city, I could relive the delightful time spent there. What's more, you can also surf, tweet, email, SMS and make telephone calls.

“Over 20,000 Indian subscribers have made phone calls from Emirates flights. Over 250,000 SMS have also been sent or received from our flights,” says Patrick Brannelly, Vice-President, Corporate Communications Product, Publishing, Digital and Events, Emirates Airlines.

The airline has spent approximately $10,000-15,000 per seat on installing the ICE system.

“We rotate our ICE content every month, adding more movies, audios and games. Going forward, the future lies in providing e-newspapers, because even while on a flight people would like to know what is happening around the world at that moment,” says Brannelly.

Having spent so much money on the ICE system, he and his team are not too happy when a passenger sleeps through the flight, because, he adds, the airline provides 2 terrabytes of entertainment content per passenger.

This has fetched it the 2011 Skytrax World Airline Awards' ‘World's Best Airline In-flight Entertainment' title for the seventh year running..

As though this pampering is not enough, the Emirates First and Business class lounges at the Dubai airport have to be experienced to understand how it is possible for well-heeled, privileged air travellers to arrive at their destination looking fresh.

Source: The Hindu