Flights to Mauritius - Emirates or Air Mauritius?

[LK2610]

Hey folks, I'm looking at booking a trip to Mauritius in January.

If anyone's been, who did you fly with?

It looks like there's two options - Emirates (expensive) or Air Mauritius (cheaper but I've not heard of them). Any thoughts on either of these?

Thank you!

We went Air Mauritius and it was fine. Totally unmemorable so not good, not bad. Huge benefit of being direct.

Emirates you will be able to fly from your local airport if you’re not in London. Which would be a huge plus for me. But if you’re in London I’d go direct.

Air Mauritius does direct flights, I’d choose direct any day over indirect. I have flown with them before and was fine (unmemorable as a pp says!)

I've flown Emirates a few times now and they've always been brilliant. When the issues with flights getting cancelled the only ones running were Emirates, never been delayed, planes always clean and new, staff really friendly and once I broke my ankle the same day as flying home and they couldn't have done more for me, arranged wheelchairs for our change over in Dubai and gave us a bank of 4 seats on both planes so I could put my foot up and be close to the loos.

Went Air Mauritius 🦤 left slightly late but nothing out of ordinary, was direct and quick, very safe, normal flight. Meals worth ordering special ones if at back, very average. Seats on way out good, seat on way back very cramped as took a middle seat and person next to me was bigger than her seat and also had no pocket and had a legroom seat and was using my pocket. Entertainment was good. Average temperature. Gave you a small handbag to keep in economy with toothbrush, toothpaste, socks, eye mask, ear plugs with picture of dodo on.

The Air Mauritius lounge in Mauritius is very good if a bit pricey but made the waiting less painful.

Think all meals were chicken, veg or fish on Air Mauritius. We pre ordered but for normal veggie is lacto ovo one, the one they have as veggie is vegan.

We flew BA. Do they not fly directly any more?

I've flown with Emirates to Mauritius and they were fucking awful. Same again the next time I flew with them. And Dubai is a horrible airport to transit.

I simply to do understand why people rave about them.
Never again. No matter how good value.

Air Mauritius were really good but I did fly business class , I've flown Emirates in both economy and business and both excellent

We had the same experience with Emirates on our honeymoon in 2019. Ive flown with them lots before and all was fine. This time, the London to Dubai leg was great but Dubai to Mauritius was awful. Same on the return journey Not sure if it was a code share but absolute shambles. It was the first time DH had flown Emirates and he was not impressed.

I'd try and go direct. BA and Tui used to also do direct flights but not daily.

Thank you everyone, this was really helpful. Sounds like maybe Air Mauritius is the way to go as we’re flying from London. A lot of the Emirates flights include a stopover. I didn’t think to look at British airways - just checked and they also do direct flights so I’ll look into them too

All emirates flights will be via Dubai.
they might use their EK flight number against other airlines though.

Actually thinking back it was Emirates who lost my luggage at a layover in Dubai.

At one point Emirates were the ones to beat for service, plush planes etc but not sure that is true any more.

@AnotherNC22 Ours was out honeymoon as well. Amongst the frustrations were that even though we were with Emirates for something like 18 hours (roughly in my head six hours to Dubai, six shitty hours in Dubai and six hours onwards), it was only one meal per flight and out stopover was twenty minutes too short for a food voucher which they dished put to people with other connections.

They also reissued our boarding cards at the gate for one of the onward flights to have us sitting separately in random odd seats amongst a school party of 50. DH is a really nervous flyer so it had been important to us to sit together. The gate staff didn't want to know and couldn't tell us why we couldn't keep our originally allocated seats.

And on one flight the seat didn't recline and the entertainment system didn't work. Again, the staff couldn't have given less of a shit.

Perhaps my expectations were too high based on reputation, but they were awful.

Subsequently, when flying to the far east, we've also proactively chosen airlines with Singapore stops because it's so much nicer.

If it’s an option for you look at Turkish Airlines. We flew with them via Istanbul (albeit from Dublin) but great flight times, the longest leg was overnight so slept for a good portion of it! Food good, enough space and flight attendants were very friendly. It worked out about €700 cheaper for us to do it this way than with Emirates! Istanbul is also a lovely airport to pass a couple of hours in.

We flew with Air Mauritius in 2017, we were actually flying home from Johannesburg with them and had a long 25 hour layover in Seychelles so we left the airport, got a hotel for the night and spent a lovely day in the Seychelles. I don't remember anything else about them, just a normal airline.

We went back to the Seychelles this year and flew with Emirates. They're always great anytime we use them, especially when flying with children, they take a little polaroid souvenir photo during the flight for kids to keep and give out little gifts. We got an emirates duffle bag, a bib and a cabin crew doll, just nice little touches that our toddler really liked.

We flew Emirates, would say as other posters have noticed I have flown Emirates a few times with a stop in Dubai, they are always great London to dubai, and always significantly less good from Dubai to your final destination! They seem to have premium routes and less premium routes and always have. The Dubai to Mauritius flight was fine, entertainment system / food etc was good - just the one from London was better!

We stayed 2/3 nights in Dubai on the way home from Mauritius all booked through emirates as well and they sorted transfers and gave us free tickets to a Dubai theme park and a good rate on the hotel,