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Favourite airlines


Xela

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As per title...

 

Flying long haul, I can't really look past Emirates at the moment. Took 5 flights with them recently... 4 Economy class on the B777-300ERs and 1 Business class on the A380.

 

The staff were very good, the food was very decent for a plane (still not wonderful mind, but better than the usual cardboard meal you get) and the IFE system was superb. Especially the ones that have been upgraded to HD Widescreen systems. The choice of films was outstanding and they had fairly recent cinema releases available to watch (Lincoln and Wreck It Ralph for example).

 

Another bonus was that they appear to fly with much lighter loads than any other airline... on the 4 economy legs I had no-one sitting directly next to me and on 2 of the flights I had a whole row to myself. 

 

Cathay Pacific are another I recommend, however can't say anything decent about Air France! 

 

In terms of budget airlines... they are all much of a muchness. The only one that stands out is Air Asia. Must have used them about 20 times and they have been spot on all the time.

Edited by Xela
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Just come back off another long haul and Virgin now easily piss over London - oops I mean British airways.

 

In all classes on the plane it just looked a whole lot better, service

 

Willy Walsh took the worlds most popular airline and made it into a London only version of RyanAir with a few long haul flights

Edited by drat01
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If the airline is flying the 777-300ER with the GE90-115B engines I couldn't care less. I have to agree with the first post about Air France. Do they ever wash the exterior of their aircraft? I'm a bit of a KLM/KLM Cityhopper fan as they are the only passenger airline to operate the MD-11 and the Fokker 70. The former will be gone by 2015 which will be a shame. I've ha good experiences with BA, Virgin but the best I've been on was Northwest before the merger. Flew on an old DC-9 and one of their A320's powered by the original CFM56-5A engines back in 2007 - excellent service and spacious seating.  

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I flew Emirates to oz in bus class on the a-380 and was really impressed , the crew , the plane amenities everything was superb ... even had a shower and full blown meal during my stop over in Dubai... You'll be hard pushed to beat Emirates IMO

Flew Qatar airlines to Kuwait in Dec ( in their dreamliner ) but have to say I wasn't that impressed with them.. But I believe they are the current Skytrax airline of the year ??

Discounting the Dallo air / koyro air 3rd world type flights the most disappointing major players for me were KLM and virgin ... I actually refuse to fly virgin again so bad was the whole experience

Tend to fly BA most of the time as I rack up the free flights with them on my BA credit card and Avios points ... not the best when up against Emirates but better than most ... A lot depends on what route you fly though , flew first to Qatar and it was all old kit and looked a bit tired , they gave you iPads for inflight entertainment as the system hasn't been upgraded .... Get a refurb BA 777 and its as good as emirates have to offer

Off to KL in August with Malaysian airlines which is an A-380 route so quite looking forward to seeing how they compare to Emirates

BA get their first 380 shortly ... LA for the first route

Should also give Royal Brunei a shout for "bad " airlines ... Alcohol free ......Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Edited by tonyh29
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Only flown outside Europe once and went with Alitalia, they were terrible. Rude staff, 4 tv screens for the whole plane and poor food (ordered chicken and was served fish!!). Was pretty cheap though so probably shouldn't really complain.

 

Flying with Jet Airways to Bangkok in a couple of weeks, was again cheap, don't know what to expect but not expecting anything amazing!

 

Wish I had the money to fly with some of the options mentioned above!

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For me, the flight is about as important as the hotel when you get there i.e. not very. My holiday is about what I do, not how I get there or what the room looks like. I'd never spend business or 1st class money on a flight unless I was a millionaire. Pointless waste IMHO. With that in mind, I'll report back on how United Airlines treat their cattle class in a fortnight :D

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For me, the flight is about as important as the hotel when you get there i.e. not very. My holiday is about what I do, not how I get there or what the room looks like. I'd never spend business or 1st class money on a flight unless I was a millionaire. Pointless waste IMHO. With that in mind, I'll report back on how United Airlines treat their cattle class in a fortnight :D

 

it is a bit of a waste , but I wouldn't call it pointless .... a 13 hour flight without some drooling sleeping bloke on your shoulder is always an advantage for example  ...

 

I sorta agree with you on the hotel front , on my "trips" I spend so little time in the hotel that all i need is a bed , shower of some description and air con ..but when i go away with the family then amenities start to come into play and the hotel becomes a bit more important ...

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Flew Qatar airlines to Kuwait in Dec ( in their dreamliner ) but have to say I wasn't that impressed with them.. But I believe they are the current Skytrax airline of the year ??

Off to KL in August with Malaysian airlines which is an A-380 route so quite looking forward to seeing how they compare to Emirates

BA get their first 380 shortly ... LA for the first route

Should also give Royal Brunei a shout for "bad " airlines ... Alcohol free ......Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo

 

Qatar have won the Skytrax airline of the year 2 years running now. I think the first win coincided with them becoming a Skytrax 5 star airline. The top 4, which has been the same 4 companies over the last couple of years (although the order has slightly changed) are all 5 star rated (Qatar, Singapore, Asiana and Cathay). I guess it wouldn't be right for a non 5 star airline to win. I think Emirates are excluded from becoming a 5 star airline due to the 10 abreast seat config on the 777's

 

The flights i'm looking at for Tokyo are on Lufthansa, flying on the A380 from Frankfurt.

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Singapore AIrlines were very good. Due to fly Qatar soon, if I agree to a contract.

Best = Emirates hands down.

Worst = RAF troopers.

Soft Lad :)

 

I think BMI baby were worse, and American Airlines pretty ordinary.

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Delta are pretty good.  I've used them to get to the states a few times.

 

Ryanair are the worst I have ever flown.  A combination of a lack of leg room and a generally uncomfortable experience.  Far cheaper than the closest alternative though...

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Delta are pretty good. I've used them to get to the states a few times.

Ryanair are the worst I have ever flown. A combination of a lack of leg room and a generally uncomfortable experience. Far cheaper than the closest alternative though...

I'm 6"3 and ive found the leg room with Ryanair is excellent for a budget airline, I've flown with air lingus and would have been more comfortable if i was curled up in a cage

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Delta are pretty good.  I've used them to get to the states a few times.

 they ( like a lot of the US airlines) charge for baggage at check in which surprised me for big airlines ( they were US internal flights i took with them  , don't know about World wide)

 

 

I think South West were the only internal ones i flew with that included it in the  price of the ticket ( possibly AA but as they cancelled my New Orleans Dallas flight due to severe weather and routed me to Vegas via Houston and then LA I couldn't really tell you )

 

though i think I heard today on the radio that BA are going to start charging baggage fees at Gatwick as they try and compete cost wise  with Easyjet on short haul flights ??

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Usually travel Thai Airways when flying over to Asia from here. Quite decent.

Air Asia has also been alright the one time I flew with them.

Awol is right, Kingfisher seemed to employ only gorgeous women. Don't know how they got away with that. 

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Delta are pretty good.  I've used them to get to the states a few times.

 

 they ( like a lot of the US airlines) charge for baggage at check in which surprised me for big airlines ( they were US internal flights i took with them  , don't know about World wide)

 

I never paid baggage when I flew to NYC with them in December, but I had to pay for a second bag when I flew to and from Denver a few months beforehand.

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For long haul I have to defend my beloved Air France. In all classes they have the best cabin staff training of any airline that I fly, and are easily my first choice anywhere. KLM are okay, but they are very Dutch in attitude, polite, but without emotion.

Emirates I found to be pretty damn awful. Aircraft are okay, seat pitch okay (Economy), food is okay, but the general attitude and manner of the cabin staff leaves a lot to be desired. I used them  on a 4 sector round trip and won't be rushing to book again.

Virgin I suffer, as they are the only ones who fly to various Caribbean islands, although they have never felt in any way special in the times that I have flown with them. Okay as a holiday airline though.

I used Air Canada recently in a bit of quirky routing (Business First) and it was pretty impressive-maybe their French side coming through :)

I no longer fly US airlines or BA long haul. It is terrible to say, but the terrorists will get through again, and those are the airlines that they will target. Plus the fact the 'service' on all US airlines, particularly long haul, I have always found to be pretty awful.

 

Short haul lo-cos are much of a muchness, but I would go with the positive comment on Air Asia. A special mention for the Granddaddy, Southwest Airlines and GOL (Brazil). The worst I have used is Lion Air (Indonesia), which are the only airline I have ever been on that has a multi-faith, multi-language prayer card in the seat back, for you to pray for safe arrival of the flight!

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