flydubai

flydubai is Dubai's short- and medium-haul specialist, government-owned like Emirates and increasingly woven into it, with a deep codeshare partnership that funnels traffic through Dubai International. Its network stretches across the Gulf, the wider Middle East, Africa, Central and South Asia and Eastern Europe, much of it to cities the bigger carrier does not serve.

The fleet is all Boeing 737, but the cabins are anything but uniform. Some aircraft carry a lie-flat business class up front, some carry a recliner business, and one high-density fit has no business cabin at all. Two flights on the same route can draw very different aircraft, so the published seat map for your specific flight matters more here than at most narrowbody operators.

The published layouts cover the 737-800, the 737 MAX 8 in three distinct fits and the 737 MAX 9. The headline is the business cabin: on the 737-800, one of the MAX 8s and the MAX 9 it is a staggered lie-flat arrangement, alternating rows of paired seats with solo seats in the centre of the cabin, which is a rare thing to find on a single-aisle jet.

The other MAX 8 fits tell a different story. One carries a two-by-two recliner business, a comfortable regional product but a seat you sit in rather than sleep in, and the high-density version is a single-class economy jet from front to back. Economy across the fleet is a standard three-by-three cabin.

At its best, flydubai business is one of the more surprising products in the region: a flat bed on an aircraft type most airlines fit with recliners at most, with the solo centre seats reaching the aisle directly. On the longer sectors the network runs, it changes what the flight feels like at the other end.

The recliner version is a fair regional business, more space and better service than economy without the bed, and worth knowing about in advance so the expectation matches the seat. Economy is a tidy modern cabin; on the single-class jet the front rows and the exits are the seats doing the extra work.

The first check is which business cabin your flight carries, because the difference between the lie-flat and the recliner is the difference between arriving slept and arriving stiff. In the staggered flat-bed cabins the solo centre seats are the pick for travellers on their own, with direct aisle access and the most privacy, while the paired seats suit couples.

In economy, the bulkhead row behind the business cabin and the rows around the over-wing exits carry the extra legroom, and the rear rows by the galley and lavatories are the ones to avoid on a full flight. On the single-class MAX 8, the front rows add legroom and get you off first. The layout for your specific aircraft settles which of the five fits you are looking at.