In 2015, over seven million Emirates passengers traveled to and from the GCC and MENA.

Emirates claims to offer a variety of product and service offerings inspired by the 18 cities that it serves in the GCC and MENA.

Emirates offers over 100 regionally inspired dishes onboard most of its flights, not just to its 18 destinations in the GCC and MENA, but also to destinations across its network.

Dishes like chicken machbous, kibbeh bil laban and an assortment of Arabic mezze regularly appear on menus. Dishes like warak enab have also been a mainstay with over 16,000 vine leaves being rolled each day.

Joost Heymeijer, Emirates’ SVP catering, said: “We continually try to take high altitude dining to a whole new level, and tapping into the authenticity of the destinations we fly to is a top priority for us. For the Gulf and MENA regions, this means sourcing local ingredients like fresh spice for chicken machbous, for a unique onboard experience that offers a taste of home.”

On the in-flight entertainment front, Emirates says it is a leader in Arabic content with up to 145 channels on offer in an average month on ice, the airline’s award winning in-flight entertainment system with over 2,500 channels as well as live TV.

This includes 59 Arabic movies, 19 TV series from the region, 65 choices of Arabic music, in addition to live TV that includes Arabic news channels like Sky News Arabia. Arabic subtitles are available for over 75 movies in other languages.

Passengers on all Emirates A380s and select B777s enjoy free Wi-Fi for the first 10MB data used.

Patrick Brannelly, divisional VP, customer experience, commented: “To ensure the best experience onboard, we work hard to source content that is relevant to our passengers who come from backgrounds on six continents.”