Ahlan Wasahlan Dubai - اهلا وسهلا في دبي

We landed a few moments back at Dubai's famed international airport. The three hour journey was, well, a bit short, now that I am getting used to long hauls.

This was our first time onboard Emirates, which is the "unofficial" national carrier of India with more seats out of India than all the Indian carriers combined. There are no prizes for guessing why that is the case - years of apathy towards development of the Indian aviation sector and well-oiled Emirates (and Etihad) machinery with its organised outreach into the Indian bureaucracy gave them this reach.

The influence of the Gulf-based carriers makes many Indian aviation enthusiasts cringe, but I still wanted to have the Emirates experience, first hand.

Emirates has significant pluses, but the negatives do outweigh the pluses. To begin, the economy section of the Boeing 777 cabin even though not in the "mint" condition was refreshingly fresh and bright, and inviting. The economy seats were pretty comfortable for short to medium hauls like this sector.

The icing on the cake was the entertainment system which Emirates has branded as "ICE". The selection of movies was amazing. I watched "London Has Fallen", which is a typical Hollywood potboiler followed by some instrumental stuff as we began our approach into Dubai...

The inflight meal was exceptionally good - I had pre-ordered a seafood meal, which by any standards was pretty elaborate - lusciously large and tender shrimp and a large tuna steak with vegetables. I truly relished my meal.

And now the biggest minuses - the attitude of the cabin crew sucked. Emirates may boast of have a multinational crew (they mentioned they had crew from "x" number of nationalities speaking 17 languages), they certainly looked down upon passengers, dare I say with a racist bias. They were rude and curt with monosyllable replies and quite literally were rough in handling meal trays.

Probably their attitude in the business and first class is different, but they truly sucked in economy. And if you ask me, they really don't deserve a top-notch rating - the likes of Singapore Airlines, Korean Air and Cathay Pacific are far, far better as an overall, well-rounded product, with exceptional staff.

Our flight took us south of Gujarat and Karachi, before we entered the Gulf of Oman north of the city of Muscat, overflying Khor Fakkan, Fujairah before Sharjah...

Overflying Sharjah, and in a few moments, we would line for short-finals into DXB...

The massive wing of the Boeing 777 is such a treat to watch...

Lining up now...

And the sky does have a hint of a few clouds...

On short finals...

And here we are at DXB...

And all I see is Emirates, certainly not a great Plane Spotting opportunity...

After the lousy onboard experience, I was hoping the experience at the airport would be better. But the airport also did not live up to the high expectations that I had and that made me wonder how could an airport as lousy as this get rave reviews.

The immigration staff were pretty unfriendly - that's weird because this place promotes itself as an oasis of tourism in the desert of nothingness. Delivery of bags on the conveyor system was tardy - it took about 30 minutes. Man, I wish I were in Hong Kong or Singapore!

But here I am and I hope the city is better than the airport - Ahlan Wasahlan Dubai - اهلا وسهلا في دبي!!!!