Airlines Who do you like dont like

[juddy]

Something thats got nothing to do with Pumas.

Whats the best and worst Airlines you have been on???

For me Lao Air ( Fantastic )
Cathy Pacific ( Fantastic )
MAS ( Fantastic )

British Airways ( -100 ) Poor
Jet Star ( Average )
Thai ( Average )

[Scouse]

I thought this one would be up on your list:

http://www.pumaair.com.br/

:D:D

[solmanic]

All these opinions are based on cattle-class service...

Emirates - excellent.
Korean - surprisingly good, and excellent Seoul stopover at the Hyatt.
Lauda/Austrian - excellent.
Air New Zealand - quite good.
JAL - legs from Australia to Japan treated as not long haul so tiny, tiny seats and little entertainment, but legs to Europe are good.
Qantas domestic - sometimes good, sometimes bad.
Qantas international - average.
Virgin-Blue - rubbish but reliable
Jetstar - the worst, but cheap.
Ryanair - would be better off standing (they are trying to implement this) as the seats are like ironing boards, but if you're well insured they are uber-cheap. Watch the draconian luggage restrictions.
Air France - rubbish, scary food.
Swissair - average
British Airways - average.
United - average
ANA - OK but flew them a looong time ago. Have a mate who's a pilot for them and he actually recommends flying Jetstar to Japan :eek:.

I'm sure there are others but they can't have been noticeably good or bad and just blend into a fog of grey, generic air carriers.

[solmanic]

I recommend using this website (http://www1.epinions.com/trvl) to check on airline reviews, and this website (http://www.seatguru.com/) to check seating configurations.

[p38arover]

You won't need to book Swissair. They went out of business some years ago.

The best?

Now defunct Ansett international first class (I was upgraded a few times from business).

The worst?

Garuda.

[seano87]

The good:
Emirates - equal best in my books with...
Singapore airlines
Ethiad - very good
Austrian
Lufthansa (international, domestic not so good)
Alitalia
Air Canada
Virgin Blue - reliable and cheap.
KLM

The bad:
QANTAS - in half a dozen flights with them, never been a great experience
Indian Airlines - not really bad service or anything, more dodgy planes...
Garuda
JAL
Tiger
BA

But by far the worst - United Airlines - forgot to have a plane in Sydney for a flight to LA, 24 hour delay, didn't organise catering so no food for 16 hours... lost all trace of luggage until it mysteriously got found 6 days later and on numerous flights they were generally rude and unhelpful.

Seano

[juddy]

well thank you for thinking about me......... and the time taken to find such a lovely airline.



I thought this one would be up on your list:

http://www.pumaair.com.br/

:D:D

[solmanic]

You won't need to book Swissair. They went out of business some years ago.

No great loss to the aviation industry...

[olbod]

Butler were good.

[Leo]

Oooh, the stories I could tell.....

anyway, for cattle class then the good are:

Kingfisher Airlines
Qatar
Singapore
new Air India 777s (34 inch seat pitch)

the bad:
Emirates 777s (10 abreast seating whereas other decent airlines only fit 9)
BA (a tight squeeze)
Air France
JAL domestic high density config
All low cost carriers

Premium classes:
Good:
Singapore; Emirates; Cathy; JAL; ANA; Virgin Atlantic; Jet Airways.


In economy, my main issue is leg room. Don't care about IFE or even food. There was a time (for a short while before the oil crisis) when the standard Boeing configuration for the 747 in economy was 9-abreast seating with 34 -36 inches of seat pitch. Now they all have 10 abreast and BA only have 31 inches pitch!

If interested, there are some good trip reports on Airliners.net | Airplanes - Aviation - Aircraft- Aircraft Photos & News (http://www.airliners.net) .No, I am not a plane spotter.

[strangy]

The bad.
Swirijaya Air out of Jakarta to Solo, Indonesia.
A cat 3 airline using the oldest 737s I have seen, complete with 70s red interior. Im sure these aircraft were meant to have flush rivets, where these had some odd looking repairs. I suppose seeing two "engineers???" lying inside the egine duct while it was still spooling down and a few engines on stands on the apron gave absolute confidence. The pilots, with their massive engine and speed fluctuations throughout the flight, gave myself and a mate (both of us pilots)the thought of hitch hiking the return journey.

Next would be Tiger. Poor service rude crew and seat spacing that would give a dwarf DVT.:twisted::twisted:

[VladTepes]

Good:

Air New Zealand are very good if you are travelling with Firearms (in your luggage!)

Bad:

LanChile - Old 747 back from Beunos Aries to Sydney via some tiny isolated airport right at the tip o South America, and Auckland.

Only 4 of the toilets onm the aircraft were fully operational, and the plane was pretty full.

Cabin Service? Pretty much none. Or to be more precise.. Exactly none.

The worst thing about it is we had booked Qantas only to find out later it was actually a code-share flight.

[martinozcmax]

Aeroflot good if you only want to go on one trip. :D Outside toilets, pilots drunk or shonky. They have been known to let the kids fly the plane.

Tiger domestic locally are absolutely shocking. Customer service non existent or even negative, rude and unhelpful. flew them once and never again.

Virgin Blue and Jetstar have always been ok for me.

JAL business class was very good as was Malaysian.

Qantas good reputation poor service delivery, doing you a favour letting you on board.

Ansett were good, another decent airline with good people let down by bad managers. :mad:


Marty

[juddy]

YouTube - Yorkshire Airlines

[Bigbjorn]

Don't like any of them. Can't afford business class if I have to pay for it myself. Not one airline I have ever flown with has seats that fit 110kg former prop forwards with long legs and size 12 feet. Why do they assume that all customers are Asian or Mediterranean dwarfs? Do they use the same seat designers as Alfa Romeo?

[solmanic]

This one's a goody...

YouTube - best airline

[VladTepes]

Just avoid this one !


*** language warning ***

YouTube - Chopper Air Safety

[300+]

I like Qantas at the moment. They just upgraded me both ways to the US.

Then the whole family was upgraded to Europe & back. I was even in first for half the way.

Mind you, that is after 6 years of being platinum and only being upgraded twice (one of those was domestic!). Guess that means my luck is up and I won't be upgraded for another 6 years!

Cheers, Steve

[martinozcmax]

I like Qantas at the moment. They just upgraded me both ways to the US.

Then the whole family was upgraded to Europe & back. I was even in first for half the way.

Mind you, that is after 6 years of being platinum and only being upgraded twice (one of those was domestic!). Guess that means my luck is up and I won't be upgraded for another 6 years!

Cheers, Steve

Steve, until the economy picks up keep expecting the upgrades and good service. They are desperate to keep people like you happy mate.

[JamesH]

Qantas are so frustrating. OK they don't fall out of the sky so that's a big plus but as said in an earlier post they have no idea of customer service.

Ive had some really good experiences from cabin staff on occasions where they've taken the time to be extra helpful. I feel sorry for those people when they hear stories about how awful Qantas cabin crew are. I wonder how long their commitment lasts working in that environment. I'm glad Ive somehow found enough sense not to give some nasty old boilers and their angry queen colleagues a piece of my mind. I don't like being spoken to like I'm in Grade 1 and she/he is the teacher.

And on the ground on the odd occasion when the flights aren't cancelled you can be sure they'll leave late.

Ive had some good experiences on Garuda and definitely on Cathay. It might be a culture thing.

[300+]

Funny how perceptions differ between people. I've never had a qantas person be rude or obviously unhelpful, although there have been a few delays over the years, lost luggage, etc. I have also seen them in full inflight medical emergency mode and that is very impressive and reassuring (not that you ever want to see that...). But my airline of hate at the moment is Cathay. I recently took a trip in business and it was awful. The seats were bad, the food was inedible, the staff were polite enough but useless. For breakfast a guy came round with a basket of pastries for us all to grab from. How about a plate? Napkin? Or even the business class service we have paid for?

Which reminds me. I must call BA to see what they are doing about my broken suitcase...

Cheers, Steve

[juddy]

The wife's Brother and partner, got a up grade a few weeks ago, Sydney to San Francisco, they moved Business to First, and premium economy to business, and steerage to premium. Seems they need to fill seats, so whats the point of flying half full. I see some airlines, BA, Virgin have taken off some of the twice daily Asia flights too...






Steve, until the economy picks up keep expecting the upgrades and good service. They are desperate to keep people like you happy mate.

[isuzurover]

These are the airlines I have flown (off the top of my head) - mostly cattle class - probably a few more. Listed in order of preference. I will never fly Delta (or northwest) again if I have any say in the matter).


Royal Brunei
Thai
Japan Air Lines
Air India
Qantas (Qantas business class is quite good)
Iberia
Ryanair
American Airlines
United Airlines
Northwest (now owned by Delta)
Delta

[Hay Ewe]

Fair - Air India, Heathrow to Toronto
Excellent - Air India Toronto to Heathow
on the way there, there were only about 5 white people, me and 4 others, on the way back, the plane was only about 1/3 full and more white people, we all go together, heaps of food and beer!

Good, Cathay Pacific two years ago, Cairns to Heathrow and back
dissapointed, Cathay from heatrow to Brissy

Excellent - Air New Zealand - especially as I upgraded my self (un wittingly) to the premium lounge in Los Angeles during the stop over. Dressed smartly with a soft breif case, no one questioned me until it was time to re-board to aukland and I didnt have the proper boarding pass. That was after a heap of sandwiches and beer :D

Brit airways and QANTAS - both dissapointing, expected more from 'prestigous' national carriers

Air Madagascar - better than BA and QF - at elast you knew what you were going to get

Jetstart - we avoid preferably
Virgin blue - our prefered carrier in australia

good thread, enjoyed

[juddy]

Why cant the likes of BA and QANTAS get thee act together...



Fair - Air India, Heathrow to Toronto
Excellent - Air India Toronto to Heathow
on the way there, there were only about 5 white people, me and 4 others, on the way back, the plane was only about 1/3 full and more white people, we all go together, heaps of food and beer!

Good, Cathay Pacific two years ago, Cairns to Heathrow and back
dissapointed, Cathay from heatrow to Brissy

Excellent - Air New Zealand - especially as I upgraded my self (un wittingly) to the premium lounge in Los Angeles during the stop over. Dressed smartly with a soft breif case, no one questioned me until it was time to re-board to aukland and I didnt have the proper boarding pass. That was after a heap of sandwiches and beer :D

Brit airways and QANTAS - both dissapointing, expected more from 'prestigous' national carriers

Air Madagascar - better than BA and QF - at elast you knew what you were going to get

Jetstart - we avoid preferably
Virgin blue - our prefered carrier in australia

good thread, enjoyed

[JamesH]

Why cant the likes of BA and QANTAS get thee act together...

Well as 300+ said it's all in the personal impression and there is always two sides to every interaction. Qantas and me are not a good match. As Ive said Ive had a few really positive experiences with Qantas cabin crew and I pretty certain when things go awry they'll step up when you need them to, but the vibe in the cattle class section is pretty much, "sit down, belt up and shut up". Some people don't even notice. Ive experienced it in other areas of Australian hospitality and i don't like it.

When I'm being served I want to be served and the transaction is always about making me happy not making us both happy, or minimising the inconvenience to the staff. There is nothing demeaning or disrespectful to anyone in the process of serving customers; it does not cancel out my obligations for courtesey and manners. I have clients/stakeholders in my job and I work for them in the same way.

I want another drink, so could you please go get it, when you can, and not let me know what you think about that? Thank you.

[buzz66]

As an Aircraft Engineer I will never fly on ANY Indonesian, or Air China, and the like.
Once worked on one of Merpati's Aircraft in Holland. I have seen some **** heaps in my time, but as a Commercial Aircraft it was frightening.

Interesting statistic......If you spent the same amount of time flying as driving, you are more likely to be injured or die in a plane crash. (International stats..not domestic)

It's just most people spend more time driving.

[300+]

Interesting statistic......If you spent the same amount of time flying as driving, you are more likely to be injured or die in a plane crash. (International stats..not domestic)

It's just most people spend more time driving.

Oh crap.

Steve

[Loaded]

At the moment first why would you want to fly out of Australia all other destinations are far superior and doggy at the moment.
Second I would not fly anywhere at the moment as it seems one plane a month will fall out of the sky.
Stay alive and do the drive (Love the Landy). ;)

[DRanged]

Worst aircraft condition I,ve flown in

Domestic Aeroflot through Siberia and greater Russia (Tukolov 154 I think)
Tallair all over PNG ( various makes and models )
Malaysian Airlines 737 from memory

Best pilots would be a tie between the Russians and the Aussies ( in PNG )

Nothing like a "hot landing" on a supposedly dosn't exist military airstrip about 3hrs from Moscow!!!

The rumours that Aeroflot pilots let their kids fly the planes is not true. All the domestic flights I flew, the "Anna Kornikova" look alike girls got first dibs in the cockpit. Says it all cockpit hey.

Justin

[rocket scientist]

Singapore airlines seem best.

I've flown in every conceivable type of aircraft, fixed wing and helo, and landed on some out of the way dodgy airstrips:-
Then there is Southern China Air.....:o:eek: Friendly service as you would expect from the Chinese, but I have to say the scariest landing ever experienced. At least I'm still here to tell the tale.

[sashadidi]

Best: Emirates, brillant with the children when we go back to Russia each year or so.
Air New Zealand OK
Qantas,not so good
Worst, Zambian airlines (as they were) various Russian airlines which come and go
Aeroflot, I have heard now have/had a german company in Moscow overseeing their maintence and is much improved, not sure about service as they are too expensive
Hear some brillant stories in Russia, Fly across Siberia and the airline has run out of credit to buy fuel, they have a whip around from the passengers to buy fuel at the airport!!! to get back.Huge meals on midnight flights across Siberia (when you want to sleep), Full blast cabin music on the same flights!!!!
Planes being diverted to different airports around moscow so that a rich pasenger could catch a connecting fllight somewhere form that airport and save the commuting ( cost to declare a mayday and land there US$ 900!!!)
All flight s are a matter of how the crew feel and perhaps how you percieve them also, Had brillant and really bad with Quantas

[3toes]

Over the last 15 years I have found Singapore airlines to be consistently good.

Never had a bad flight with Qantas however never a good one either. On one flight to Singapore on Singarpore Airlines the person sitting beside me had a clip board and every so often was makeing notes. Saw me watching and showed me what he was doing. Worked for Qantas and was monitoring the activity levels of the cabin crew. This was about 5 years ago. Seems they were attempting to use the information to push the Qantas cabin crew to lift their game.

BA had a very similar feel to Qantas only the cabin crew were felt they were far superior to the customers and were doing you a favour by being there. Food was not to the same standard as provided by other airlines.

Would avoid MAS as they have had a number of aircraft arrive at Heathrow so low on fuel have had to land immediately. Came close to being banned from Heathrow because of it.

RAAF Hercules. Best view from an inflight toilet ever as it was strapped to the loading ramp. Bit on the noisy side however they were on time both departure and arrival.

No real problems with Continental (do they still fly?) however the carpet was worn through and the edges of the seats were all worn with the foam showing. Trust the rest of the plane was better maintained.

Worst flights in Europe have been with Ryan Air and Caledonean.

Ryan Air is at least consistent in standards. Customers are in interference with the running of the airline. The crew and ground staff are actually trained to be rude. Their utophia is that they can figure out how to charge you for the flight without having to actually let you board.

Caledonian had the smallest leg room / seat pitch I have ever experienced. Was unable to fit my legs in to the seat space. Had to do the flight with my legs in the central isle of the plane. Lucky the trolley dollies never made a trip up the isle of the plane in the 3 hours we were flying.

[Captain_Rightfoot]

Hmmm... I don't do that much flying. Most of it has been on Qantas.

Safety is big with me. I have a friend who is a pilot and has flown all around the world and he tells me to fly airlines with expat pilots if possible. So, that's what I do.

There isn't much you can do about airline safety other than choosing your airline, time and destination, and maybe seat. Sorry.. didn't mean to go on a tangent. :)

I flew Qantas to Singapore in May and for the first 4 hours of the flight the windows based IFE kept re-booting. With two small children that makes it a long flight.

We flew Singapore over there and I didn't think they were really that great. However they couldn't land to save themselves. I nearly asked the stewardess whether we landed or were shot down in HK. We slammed that runway so hard that I thought the overheads were going to burst open. Also, as I got on I looked at the stewardess who was like 5"2 and though you won't be much use if I had to be helped from the plane in an emergency.

Back on Qantas the landings were smooooth...

[juddy]

Caledonian ? were they not bought out by BA??? they had a fleet of Tristar's, that BA took on, but were then sold to the RAF, for conversion to Tankers? and still in use today.

Suprised about the MAS fuel thing, have used MAS over the last ten years or so, and have always thought they were very good, They used to have a 747-400 on the Hk - KL which was really good, loads of room, anf very good IFE... video games etc.

One airline that really needs to pull its socks up is Thai, Flying out of the uk, they can do very good deals, beating BA/QANTAS most of the time, and to be fair there service is not too bad ( compaired to BA ) but they still dont have IFE on there 747-400's, just very poor quality over head screens, say 17inch, hopeless. The Airbus A340-600 they operate have very good IFE, but these operate on the US bound legs..

It may have got better, but Thai have canceled there orders for the A380's



Over the last 15 years I have found Singapore airlines to be consistently good.

Never had a bad flight with Qantas however never a good one either. On one flight to Singapore on Singarpore Airlines the person sitting beside me had a clip board and every so often was makeing notes. Saw me watching and showed me what he was doing. Worked for Qantas and was monitoring the activity levels of the cabin crew. This was about 5 years ago. Seems they were attempting to use the information to push the Qantas cabin crew to lift their game.

BA had a very similar feel to Qantas only the cabin crew were felt they were far superior to the customers and were doing you a favour by being there. Food was not to the same standard as provided by other airlines.

Would avoid MAS as they have had a number of aircraft arrive at Heathrow so low on fuel have had to land immediately. Came close to being banned from Heathrow because of it.

RAAF Hercules. Best view from an inflight toilet ever as it was strapped to the loading ramp. Bit on the noisy side however they were on time both departure and arrival.

No real problems with Continental (do they still fly?) however the carpet was worn through and the edges of the seats were all worn with the foam showing. Trust the rest of the plane was better maintained.

Worst flights in Europe have been with Ryan Air and Caledonean.

Ryan Air is at least consistent in standards. Customers are in interference with the running of the airline. The crew and ground staff are actually trained to be rude. Their utophia is that they can figure out how to charge you for the flight without having to actually let you board.

Caledonian had the smallest leg room / seat pitch I have ever experienced. Was unable to fit my legs in to the seat space. Had to do the flight with my legs in the central isle of the plane. Lucky the trolley dollies never made a trip up the isle of the plane in the 3 hours we were flying.

[clean32]

Best: Emirates, brillant with the children when we go back to Russia each year or so.
Air New Zealand OK
Qantas,not so good
Worst, Zambian airlines (as they were) various Russian airlines which come and go
Aeroflot, I have heard now have/had a german company in Moscow overseeing their maintence and is much improved, not sure about service as they are too expensive
Hear some brillant stories in Russia, Fly across Siberia and the airline has run out of credit to buy fuel, they have a whip around from the passengers to buy fuel at the airport!!! to get back.Huge meals on midnight flights across Siberia (when you want to sleep), Full blast cabin music on the same flights!!!!
Planes being diverted to different airports around moscow so that a rich pasenger could catch a connecting fllight somewhere form that airport and save the commuting ( cost to declare a mayday and land there US$ 900!!!)
All flight s are a matter of how the crew feel and perhaps how you percieve them also, Had brillant and really bad with Quantas

Aeroflot, most of the stories come from the early 90s when russia was changing from the soviet system and nothing was organized. but i do have a couple myself. air plane diverted to another airport for fuel ( weather and destination snowed in), by the time we were fueled up that air port was closed ( snow). we were then Taxied ( lada) to some sort of a run down hotel ( the best in-town) where we were feed and basically kept tanked up for 3 days. then the news came down, AIRPORT open ( both of them) then the news, the road to the airport was closed. by the time the road was cleared the air port was socked in again. i got home 6 days late but had a great time. this is no fault of the airline its just the environment we were in.
even in the summer months parts of russia can come under some pretty intense rain fall that closes airports, thats why many cites and towns even have 2-4 airports doted all over the place. i even remember talking to a controller who was being rotated out because the 1400m strip he worked at had only received 1 landing in the last 3 years.
on the other hand, i remember reading about a plane full of passengers who stopped the pilot form entering because he was drunk, 1 row of seats coming adrift on landing, the cast alloy base plates had broken. twice landing on flat tyers, both times on my side so i got to watch the pilot touch down then hold a wing up for as long as posable the see the rubber shred itself.

worst, long hall
Quantis
Air NZ
british

worst short hall
Thai
Aeroflot

most rememberable flights

JAL Tokyo to Moscow
the plane was full of 52day russian hookers who smoked everywhere and drank a lot as well as russian circus performers returning inaddtion to a russian ballet troop and just to add to the mix a couple of classes of uni art students and i was the only "english " on the flight.

[sashadidi]

Aeroflot, most of the stories come from the early 90s when russia was changing from the soviet system and nothing was organized. but i do have a couple myself. air plane diverted to another airport for fuel ( weather and destination snowed in), by the time we were fueled up that air port was closed ( snow). we were then Taxied ( lada) to some sort of a run down hotel ( the best in-town) where we were feed and basically kept tanked up for 3 days. then the news came down, AIRPORT open ( both of them) then the news, the road to the airport was closed. by the time the road was cleared the air port was socked in again. i got home 6 days late but had a great time. this is no fault of the airline its just the environment we were in.
even in the summer months parts of russia can come under some pretty intense rain fall that closes airports, thats why many cites and towns even have 2-4 airports doted all over the place. i even remember talking to a controller who was being rotated out because the 1400m strip he worked at had only received 1 landing in the last 3 years.
on the other hand, i remember reading about a plane full of passengers who stopped the pilot form entering because he was drunk, 1 row of seats coming adrift on landing, the cast alloy base plates had broken. twice landing on flat tyers, both times on my side so i got to watch the pilot touch down then hold a wing up for as long as posable the see the rubber shred itself.

worst, long hall
Quantis
Air NZ
british

worst short hall
Thai
Aeroflot

most rememberable flights

JAL Tokyo to Moscow
the plane was full of 52day russian hookers who smoked everywhere and drank a lot as well as russian circus performers returning inaddtion to a russian ballet troop and just to add to the mix a couple of classes of uni art students and i was the only "english " on the flight.
Yes brilliant stories, you must have had some fun!!, My relatives got bumped into bussiness on a 747 JAL, all the russian were loud and noisy and the japenese sat there very quietly, poor airline!!!

[Bigbjorn]

Can't remember the name of the airline, it was Polish and did milk runs up and down the Baltic ports. From Gdansk to Kobnhavn, I remember looking out a window at a wing and watching the loose rivets dance and an engine oil leak gradually spread backwards down the wing until droplets were flicking off the trailing edge. Landings were somwhat reminiscent of a pogo stick. Got a damn good meal of Polish sausages and sauerkraut, also good Polish vodka was free and served in large glasses, about 5 ounces at a time. I was just about legless by time to dismount in Kobnhavn. Danes have a bit of trouble with Aussie accented poor Danish, try drunk Aussie accented poor Danish. Fortunately English is widely spoken and understood in Danmark, urban areas at least.

[Gullible]

China Eastern - just don't, not even if there is no other option. :angrylock: