I flew on Emirates last summer on the Mumbai-Dubai-Mumbai route in economy class. Was with my parents on a short family holiday, and we were excited to try Emirates as we had heard a lot about them. It was a pretty disappointing experience. Check-in at Mumbai was horrible, there were long delays to even x-ray the bags which in turn caused huge lines at check-in, this in spite of having several Emirates staff members standing near by! Apparently, they did not think it necessary to help facilitate the check-in process so that the passengers could get a move on.
The plane itself was relatively new and nicely decorated, in a 2-3-2 configuration, and with PTV’s. However, the seats were extremely disappointing - they were narrow and cramped, with very limited recline and legroom and not comfortably padded. Since it was only a 3-hour flight to Dubai (2 1/2 hours on the return leg), it was bearable but we all felt that the economy seats of Jet, Cathay Pacific and Malaysian Airlines were all way better. On the return journey, my dad’s PTV’s sound wasn’t working but he couldn’t change his seat as it was a full flight. And the food both ways was very disappointing - bland and I swear, stale main courses. No one is expecting gourmet food on a flight but the food needs to be fresh at least.
My dad was on a low sodium diet at the time and the only thing they could give him was boiled vegetables! The attitude of the Emirates crew also left something to be desired - they were extremely curt and didn’t try to assist some of the passengers who had queries on various things. We were on time going to Dubai, but on the return leg were delayed by an hour with no explanation offered.
Overall, the experience fell way short of the hype surrounding Emirates and the common reaction was "is this all there is"? If you are flying to Dubai and are stuck between Emirates and Air India, I would say take Emirates because apparently Air India has allocated its oldest planes to the Gulf sector - enough reason to avoid! But if you have any other choices, you should probably take them. I am sure other people have had a good experience with Emirates, but maybe that was on their Europe/US flights. At least for the India sector, they don’t seem to care very much about the passengers, probably knowing that Air India is a depressing alternative. Hopefully, Jet can soon get permission to fly to Dubai.