Luxembourg-Dubai-Luxembourg, early Dec. 2025
This trip was made in early Dec. 2025. It was my third trip to Dubai, but this time my final destination was in Abu Dhabi, the capital city of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Luxembourg-to-Dubai was flight LG9009, which took-off from Luxembourg (my home airport) at 06:53 (gate A5 departure 06:40) and landed in Dubai at 16:10 (30 minutes early).
With a scheduled departure at 06:40 I had an early start. For the first time I was able to get from my new apartment to the airport on the free tram service (which starts at 04:00). Check-in was smooth, since there were not many early flight, etc., and I had fast track and lounge access (for my first breakfast of the day).
This was a Luxair package tour (flight+hotel), but I was able to book seats in the emergency exit row (row 14) above the wing. Lots of leg room, but unfortunately the seat back does not recline. Whilst the nominal seat width (measured cushion-to-cushion) has not changed, the seat design has. The usable personal space at shoulder, elbow, and hip level is a little less, armrests are thinner, seat backs are harder, and shoulder contours are steeper. There are charging points on the seats (2-3 pin multi-socket and USB), but not for USB-C.
The views in the morning were spectacular. I guessed that the flight was 85-90% full.
FLIGHT REPORT | Luxair B737 MAX 8 | Economy | LG9009 Luxembourg – Dubai-DWC is a video review of this flight.
Breakfast was served around 08:00, and lunch around 11:00.
Breakfast was not impressive, but the yogurt was tasty. Lunch was pasta, which I thought was decent, but others complained about it being over cooked. The cake-thing was tasteless, but I liked the white wine.
We landed at Al Maktoum Int’l (DWC), also known as Dubai World Central. This is a “smaller” airport to Dubai International Airport, however it is being developed to replace todays main Dubai airport. Emirates plans to use this airport as its only hub once the first expansion is complete (ca. 2035).
It’s worth noting that my flight arrived at its gate at 16:22 (scheduled 17:00). This is local time, which in winter was 3 hours ahead of local time in Luxembourg. The flight time was only 6 hours 30 minutes, which is about average from this trip.
Despite arriving at the gate 30 minutes early, it took over 1 hour to get our baggage, in an airport that was nearly empty. Just to complete the story of my trip, I did have a problem finding the Luxair group. The Luxair sign was quite small, and the group gathered behind a column. So looking around I could not immediately see where to go, but it only last a few minutes. I was the only person going to Abu Dhabi, so I had a very nice car and a chauffeur. The trip itself took the best part of 90 minutes, largely due to the traffic in Dubai. The roads are excellent in the UAE, and I noticed that the speed limit is 140 km/hr.
The aircraft was LG-LBL, and was leased from Pembroke on 2 July 2023. However, it originally was part of the Airitaly fleet (EI-GGL which was actually registered in Ireland) and was 7.2 years old (first flight 05 October 2018). Airitaly also leased from Pembroke, but ceased operations on 11 Feb. 2020. In fact this particular aircraft was delivered on 20-21 Nov 2018 from BFI (Boeing Field – King County International Airport, Seattle), Boeing’s primary delivery and test airport, to SNN (Shannon Airport, Ireland), the classic North Atlantic technical stop for long ferry flights. And then on to OLB (Olbia Costa Smeralda Airport, Sardinia, Italy), which is used by certain European operators as a completion centre, and/or storage/acceptance facility. With the failure of Airitaly, the aircraft stood at MXP (Milan Malpensa Airport) between 12 Mar 2019 – 10 Jul 2020, and then at BUD (Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport) between 10 Jul 2020 – 17 Mar 2023. Before being delivered to Luxair it also stood at OSR (Ostrava Leoš Janáček Airport in the Czech Republic) between 17 Mar – 2 Jul 2023.
Pembroke Aircraft Leasing was first established in Dublin in 1997, before being taken over by Standard Chartered in 2007. In late 2023 Standard Chartered Group sold its aviation finance leasing business Pembroke to Saudi Arabian lessor AviLease. The acquisition included 120 owned and managed aircraft that were leased to thirty airlines. AviLease (founded in 2022), backed by the Saudi government’s Public Investment Fund, now (late 2025) owns a total aircraft portfolio of 167, valued at $6 billion. On completion of the transaction Standard Chartered recorded an estimated profit of approximately US$0.3 billion.
The return flight Dubai-to-Luxembourg was LG 9010, and it took off from Al Maktoum Int’l at 10:06 (26 minutes late). It left the gate at 09:36 (also 6 minutes late), and landed in Luxembourg at 13:47 local times (scheduled 14:20), and parked at 13:50 (scheduled 14:30).
The same aircraft, LG-LBL, was used for this return flight, as for the outgoing flight on the 3rd December 2025. The only real difference between these two flights was that the breakfast yogurt was replaced with a fruit salad. As with the trip to Abu Dhabi, I was the only person travelling back to Dubai, and I had again a very nice car and a chauffeur all to myself. The only real problem was the pick-up time of 05:40. There were only a couple of early departures from the Dubai airport, and I had plenty of time for a simple breakfast after check-in. The airport itself is particularly boring.
On the 2 Dec. this aircraft had made a return trip to Porto, and on the follow day 4th Dec. it returned to Luxembourg, and then again made a return trip to Porto. On the 10 Dec. it had made the flight Luxembourg-Dubai, and after our return flight on the 11th Dec., it again also made a return trip to Porto.
This round-trip was on a Boeing type B38M (this aircraft LG-LBL), but you also see mention of Boeing type 7M8. In fact they are the same aircraft, a Boeing 737 MAX 8. B38M is the ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) aircraft type designator used in flight tracking, airline scheduling systems, and databases to identify the 737 MAX 8 model. Whereas 7M8 is the IATA (International Air Transport Association) or airline schedule code (often shown on tickets and booking systems) for the same 737 MAX 8 aircraft.
You can occasionally see the code 4D00EE against this particular aircraft, this is in fact the Mode S/ICAO 24-bit aircraft address (hex code), a unique identifier assigned to a specific aircraft’s transponder. This code doesn’t say anything about the manufacturer or model of the aircraft, it’s purely an identifier used for communications and traffic surveillance. As an Airitaly aircraft it had a different unique identifier, namely 4CAFB7.
