Review of FlyDubai flight from Almaty to Dubai in Business

Hi guys, welcome back to another flight report. Today we're doing the first part of a two-part trip taking us from Almaty in Kazakhstan over to Manchester, England. The second part on Emirates A380 Business is to come. But for today, we're reviewing a lesser-known small airline, and one I now believe deserves far more praise and recognition, Fly Dubai. Being under the same ownership, I was able to book both flights on the Emirates app. Incredible, being considered as the budget version of Emirates, I felt my experience today equaled that on Emirates in Business in many aspects. You can't fault Emirates Business since they have such a large cabin to attend to, but regardless I feel FlyDubai's standards far exceeds your standard expectation for a 'budget' airline.

We kicked things off at Almaty airport, I apologize for the poor image quality. I arrived with the girlfriend who had a flight home at around midnight. Unfortunately for me, mine was scheduled for 03:45 am. I spent around two hours sitting at costa coffee's exterior seating, which conveniently stayed available late into the night.

Checkin and security worked quick, and I took off to the lounge. The lounge had rather limited options, with a small bar and buffet choices. The beef shown here was really the only hot meat dish, and it was decently flavored. I also grabbed this small pizza and a diet coke, and small glass of whisky. I planned on passing out as soon as I boarded.

I couldn't grab a good shot of our plane at Almaty, so here's one upon arrival in DXB. A very sleek design. It does seem like the little brother compared to those A380's lying around DXB. 

Here is the first look at our cabin. This is a budget airline? I was expecting a Spirit, Frontier, or Spring Airlines feel! This looks a lot like Air Almaty's business section. The seats are in a 2-1-2 configuration, quite similar to JetBlue's older mint cabin. There is a 'king seat' between the two rows of two seats. I was rather bummed to see both king seats were occupied during seat selection, but luckily i had the entire row to myself! 

I'm not sure if the parition between the seats can go up, luckily I didn't need to test it out this time round. There was a small pillow placed, and a duvet was available upon request. The seats are fully lie-flat and reclineable, and were very comfortable. The IFE screens were also a very nice size and honestly probably larger than Emirates IFE's in business class. There was a surprisingly solid selection, I ended up watching a few episodes of Two and a Half men.

Considerig it was deep into the night, traffic was minimal and we pushed back as scheduled. I caught a glimpse of this Turkish bird, on its way to Istanbul. Turkish is an airline I do hope to try someday. 

A frontal look at the IFE screens. There wasn't too much storage space but I had the entire seat next to me to place my bags. The legroom was also quite solid for a flight of this length. (I took this near the end of the flight, hence the sunlight)

Considering it was early May, the sun already began to rise around takeoff, which was 17 minutes tardy at 04:02. I managed to catch these glorious views and last glimpses of the Almaty mountains. Without a doubt, one of the most beautiful cities I've visited.

I passed out as soon as we hit cruising altitude and was allowed to recline. I had a very solid few hours of sleep before waking up with an hour or so to spare and planned to start packing up my things. 

Stepping out of the restroom, I was rather shocked to hear the crewmember ask if I wanted breakfast. I wasn't promised a meal! Awesome! She mentioned there were two options. I assumed on a 'budget' airline breakfast would resemble at most a boxed instant meal like that on Scoot or Zipair (honestly some of those look pretty good too), but check this out, a full on meal!

I promise it wasn't the element of surprise and elation talking, this was a very delicious meal. The hashbrown was incredible, so was the omelette and sausages. The only thing was the crossaint which you can tell looks quite squished :). But eerything else was incredible.

Here's a final view of the seats before landing. Very empty cabin in business today.

Upon landing, we disembarked at a remote gate. It's always an honor to stop on DXB's tarmac and be surrounded by all of Emirates' fleet. 

To my surprise, just like Emirates does, FlyDubai also provides a separate bus for business passengers. This was air conditioned and padded, the best part was the exclusivity and not needing to squish for a spot in the Dubai early morning heat.

A final loko back towards where our flight landed, but we all know where the highlight of this image is… What a sight! Still hope to one day luck out and experience one of these heavily designed Emirates liveries.