I cannot say this for sure, but it looks like Emirates does not fly to Bucharest. However, you can book a flight there - in my case, between Johannesburg and Bucharest. So what's happening?
Well, you'll need to analyse your e-Ticket carefully to figure it out, because it's actually not that clear - the only indication that you're flying with somebody other than Emirates is found in these two facts:
1: Your flight onward from Dubai to Bucharest has a different flight number (FZ in my case, vs EK - which is Emirates), as does the return flight.
2: You cannot reserve the seats for this flight - your seat choices show up for the main leg you're flying with Emirates, but not the 'FZ' flights.
If you're like me, those facts concern you. Firstly, who is FZ operated by? Are they as safe as Emirates? Does Emirates care? And if you cannot reserve tickets and happen to be flying with your wife, will your tickets be adjacent?
Once again, Google came to the rescue. It identified the FZ flights as belonging to Fly Dubai. Although it's billed as a budget airline, and the Boeings are smaller, it actually seems above board - so phew!
On the second concern, about the reserved seats, I just e-mailed FlyDubai's main address with my concern, and they promptly responded by asking me where I'd like to sit, and then sent me an e-mail confirming that they had reserved adjacent seats for my wife and I! So simple, you wonder why it's not plugged in through Emirates' own website!
Maybe it's got something to do with the note on FlyDubai's website that if you want a reserved seat you need to pay for it. Only in my case, I was never billed ... maybe that's because it was an external booking through Emirates? Or a 21st Century headache caused by a simple lack of system integration?
Or maybe it's just a question of 'If you don't ask, you don't get.' And now you know...
Great to hear you on your way to Romania soon, I got back from there in early Oct had an amazing time there. Good luck and just a bit of advise Fly Dubai are cheap bastards you need to pay for everything, so id suggest you take a few bottles of water on the plane with you and some snacks, and they dont except many currencies and you have to spend over 50 durem or they dont accept credit cards either. You also have to pay to watch movies which really sucked for me. But the flight isnt to bad think its only about 5 hours long. Hope you guys have a safe flight im sure youll have an amazing time too.
ReplyDeleteHi Marc
DeleteThat's rather worrying - I didn't realise FlyDubai was all THAT 'budget'! It's totally unlike the Emirates experience, and I'm unhappy that they'd contract to them without providing flyers with more of a heads-up.
At least I've got you, huh? Score one for the value of a blog. And thanks for the wishes, got some awesome things planned!