Have any of your flown Etihad recently?

[sunnydelight]

I need to go back to Ireland to see my dad fairly soon and my options seem to be to fly straight through to Dublin with Etihad or Virgin to Heathrow then get a connection (I won't fly BA or Qantas). I can't seem to find any more recent reviews than 2009 for Etihad and they seem to be equally divided between "great" and "don't do it".

I will be flying on my own so I don't care how nice they are to children , but what is the connection like in Abu Dhabi, is the in flight entertainment decent, are they dry? Any info very gratefully received as I need to book in the next couple of days -unfortunately there is no option for anything other than cattle class.

[sunnydelight]

Sorry, crap spelling today. Of course it's you.

[BaggedandTagged]

Go Ethiad.

I think they're good. We used to go skiing with them when we lived in Dubai - flew Abu Dhabi to Geneva and the flight was usually only half full so we could stretch out. New fleet.

Dont think they're dry- Abu Dhabi itself isn't. The airport is pretty new and shiny but not that big so connecting isnt a hassle

Cant remember the inflight ents.

[slim22]

at long haul on your own!

[EmmaBGoode]

As someone who flies a great deal, I would highly recommend Etihad. The planes are all new and very comfortable. The food is good. Abu Dhabi airport is great (the Etihad terminal just deals with Etihad flights). You can buy duty free there. You can also get a drink on the plane.

[EmmaBGoode]

Oh, and the in-flight entertainment is good. The latest films and loads of series-type shows.

[RoyalBlingThing]

I normally fly Emirates due to living in Dubai but much prefer Etihad.

[nikki1978]

I flew with them to Australia last year. The planes were nice and new, the food was pretty good and the entertainment was good.

However I found the staff rude and unhelpful. They rarely smiled, stood around gossiping, took hours to get something when you asked for it and were just very hostile.

For that reason I would not fly with them again to be honest.

[EmmaBGoode]

I agree with you RoyalBlingThing. I also live in Dubai but will travel to Abu Dhabi to fly Etihad rather than Emirates.

[chloeb2002]

We haven't flown with then since 2007. They were ok. I'd fly Singapore any day as my number one. My last au pair flew etihad and customer service was the worst. Very poor English so being german
They couldn't understand each other so I ended up calling all the time. They were very slow. Didn't tend to
Call back etc. When we flew I found the movies were older releases. Food was ok but again just not a patch on Singapore!

[sunnydelight]

Thanks all, sounds like no more niggles than anyone else (and I defy anyone to be ruder than Qantas cabin staff!). I have booked with them as they were a bit cheaper than the others (Singapore would be my preferred choice too chloe but they were $300 more) and not having to wait for a final connection to Ireland in Heathrow will be nice.

[shellybr]

We flew back with them in August and it was heaven to get on the flight in Abu Dhabi and know that was it and it was only 8 hrs. Usually at the half way point we would of had a 12hr flight stop in heatrow and then bunny hop to Dublin.