Got bumped to Business for a 5hr leg of my long, long trip. Sweet.

Emirates is one of the best airlines in the world. Switching from crappy United Airlines to superb Emirates reminded me of what’s been lost in North America.

The flying waitresses on United make it conspicuously obvious that they are ignoring you as much as they can, instead chatting at the back of the plane. On Emirates, even in coach, the staff still fawn on your every need.

Emirates was the first airline to introduce a personal entertainment system on a commercial aircraft after introducing the world’s first seat-back screens in 1992. They’ve won the award for best In-Flight-Entertainment from Skytrax for their ICE system every year since the systems inception in 2003.

600 channels of entertainment shown on a 43cm wide personal TV screen. Over 100 movies on demand including a few current releases.

Emirate’s growth has never fallen below 20% a year. In its first 11 years, it doubled in size every 3.5 years, and has every four years since. They are very profitable.

I’m right now overnighting in the VIP lounge at the airport in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Cost US$15 inclusive of wifi, food, drinks, shower. Man it’s great to be back in the developing world!

Waiter … I’ll have another sweet lassi.