Thread: Airlines Who do you like dont like

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

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.

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...

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

Originally Posted by 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.

Originally Posted by 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

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.

Originally Posted by clean32

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!!!

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.