Favourite airlines

[drat01]

This weekend I'm on a ba jumbo down to joburg but flight back is on one of their 380s . Have to use ba cos of company travel rules before anyone asks why I on London airways :-) . Let's hope the ba pilot knows his way around joburg taxi way :-)

be interested to see what you think ... from the write up I read BA have gone for economy and business mix on both decks , where as the ones I've flown with Malaysia and Emirates keep the top deck economy free ... not sure it matters too much it just seemed interesting that BA went for that config

just saw one at joburg as I was leaving for ct. One thing the ba staff said on the way down was you will see how new they feel which was an admission to how tatty the old jumbos are now

[drat01]

 

Tony most of your flights I would suspect are leisure? People who vote or who are eligible to vote in those things are (like me) mainly business travellers and for me there is a big difference in what you need and what you should expect .

Yes I pay to fly business whilst you lot don't so my comments carry more weight

But apart from a few perks to fiddle onto expenses and a guilt product out the duty free catalogue  , What exactly does a business man need on a flight that anyone else does ?

Sorry , just don't see your point

 

Edit:

Went on short haul a business trip with BA the other week , 7:00am flight , left my house at 6:00 , parked up in Terminal 5 at 6:20  ..got the pod to the terminal , fast track through passport control , into the lounge for a quick bacon butty and cup of coffee and on the plane and away at 7:00  (I can pretty much do that with any short haul BA flight (T5 , wouldn't risk it at the other terminals ) where I'm only on hand luggage , yeah it's fool hardy to get it so tight like that , but so far so good)

 

 

Maybe I didnt explain very well. Typically people who would subscribe to that survey would be business travellers and their needs are far different to leisure travellers. For example power at every seat pretty much standard on Virgin but certainly not on BA. There are lots of other things also in terms of space available in all cabins etc, BA often gets criticised compared to other airlines.

 

Your example is flawed massively re BA though because that is not the norm. Straightaway you say fast track so that must be a certain class of ticket. (and LHR does have an appalling record re passport). In today's world so many companies do not travel anything but cheapest levels on planes. So you are looking at things for paying a massive over price premium for a free bacon sarnie whereas most organisations look at price as being a key factor for travel and ticket accordingly.

 

BA in business (club) / first is certainly no better than a lot of the other airlines I have seen and used, again another massive backward step from the idiot that is Willy Walsh I no doubt suspect. That is why the survey's show how far they have fallen and they are now nothing more than mid table London centric only airline.

 

 

[tonyh29]

 

 

This weekend I'm on a ba jumbo down to joburg but flight back is on one of their 380s . Have to use ba cos of company travel rules before anyone asks why I on London airways :-) . Let's hope the ba pilot knows his way around joburg taxi way :-)

be interested to see what you think ... from the write up I read BA have gone for economy and business mix on both decks , where as the ones I've flown with Malaysia and Emirates keep the top deck economy free ... not sure it matters too much it just seemed interesting that BA went for that config

just saw one at joburg as I was leaving for ct. One thing the ba staff said on the way down was you will see how new they feel which was an admission to how tatty the old jumbos are now

 

 

when we flew to Doha it was actually cheaper to fly first than business , so of course we went for it  .. the in-flight system was the old style to the point that they gave everyone an ipad to use for watching the films and games and what not (sadly not to keep !) ... but the Bahrain/Doha route just isn't a route they seem to want to compete in hence why they haven't bothered upgrading it 

 

the flight attendant I spoke to said that due to the Dreamliner delays Boeing had been paying for BA to upgrade the interiors on a lot of their 777  fleet and so you'll find some routes have had the gold treatment as a result

[tonyh29]

 

 

Tony most of your flights I would suspect are leisure? People who vote or who are eligible to vote in those things are (like me) mainly business travellers and for me there is a big difference in what you need and what you should expect .

Yes I pay to fly business whilst you lot don't so my comments carry more weight

But apart from a few perks to fiddle onto expenses and a guilt product out the duty free catalogue  , What exactly does a business man need on a flight that anyone else does ?

Sorry , just don't see your point

 

Edit:

Went on short haul a business trip with BA the other week , 7:00am flight , left my house at 6:00 , parked up in Terminal 5 at 6:20  ..got the pod to the terminal , fast track through passport control , into the lounge for a quick bacon butty and cup of coffee and on the plane and away at 7:00  (I can pretty much do that with any short haul BA flight (T5 , wouldn't risk it at the other terminals ) where I'm only on hand luggage , yeah it's fool hardy to get it so tight like that , but so far so good)

 

 

Maybe I didnt explain very well. Typically people who would subscribe to that survey would be business travellers and their needs are far different to leisure travellers. For example power at every seat pretty much standard on Virgin but certainly not on BA. There are lots of other things also in terms of space available in all cabins etc, BA often gets criticised compared to other airlines.

 

Your example is flawed massively re BA though because that is not the norm. Straightaway you say fast track so that must be a certain class of ticket. (and LHR does have an appalling record re passport). In today's world so many companies do not travel anything but cheapest levels on planes. So you are looking at things for paying a massive over price premium for a free bacon sarnie whereas most organisations look at price as being a key factor for travel and ticket accordingly.

 

BA in business (club) / first is certainly no better than a lot of the other airlines I have seen and used, again another massive backward step from the idiot that is Willy Walsh I no doubt suspect. That is why the survey's show how far they have fallen and they are now nothing more than mid table London centric only airline.

 

 

BA have them its just they use electric and not coal fired sockets like you Northern types are used to

 

the flaw is these business type people who think a plane is for working on , do your job properly and have the proposal and pitch  finished before you step on the plane  .. a flight is for kicking your shoes off laying back and watching films not trying to impress the rest of the plane with how important you are ... my Lisbon flight the other day was full of people in suits holding strategy meetings in the aisle and so forth ... I'd have sacked them all if they worked for me  **

 

 

 

I've never seen these delays you refer to at Heathrow , mainly I use the iris scanner but as they are being phased out the new e-gates are putting people through at a fair rate of knots  .. and that isn't anything to do with BA anyway ...

 

I'm not sure of your argument on the bacon butty thing ... all airlines offer lounges and don't let economy ticket holders in , so all airlines are charging a premium for those services  ...same for fast track

 

 

 

PS.. BA come in front of Virgin on the SkyTrax survey 

 

** This is intended in a generic OTT Clarkson type way not having a pop at any VT'ers who travel for business 

Edited March 13, 2014 by tonyh29

[darrenm]

You still can't beat a RB211-524 BA 744 sound. 

 

I prefer the RB211-535E4 personally.

 

On-topic: I've booked Ryanair for a cheapo flight over to Majorca from Manchester. Are they really as bad as the reviews say? Has anyone ever had a good experience? I just thought that for 2 hours in the air I don't need anything fantastic.

[tonyh29]

 

You still can't beat a RB211-524 BA 744 sound. 

 

I prefer the RB211-535E4 personally.

 

On-topic: I've booked Ryanair for a cheapo flight over to Majorca from Manchester. Are they really as bad as the reviews say? Has anyone ever had a good experience? I just thought that for 2 hours in the air I don't need anything fantastic.

 

i've flown them on short hops and they really aren't that bad ... you get there which is the main thing

 

you do get people boarding with  McDonalds , Burger king and other stinky hot food though rather than having to pay the Ryan air charges for food  ...  bit chav if you ask me

 

 

I think the main thing with all the no frills is that if you fly hand luggage only then they are perfectly fine .. the second you have to touch a check in desk they become a bunch of robbing bastards

[Jimzk5]

You still can't beat a RB211-524 BA 744 sound.

 I prefer the RB211-535E4 personally. On-topic: I've booked Ryanair for a cheapo flight over to Majorca from Manchester. Are they really as bad as the reviews say? Has anyone ever had a good experience? I just thought that for 2 hours in the air I don't need anything fantastic.

never had anything other than good things to say about Ryanair, for £90 return in going to Portugal in a few weeks, so long as you remember to print your boarding passes (print both before you leave) and keep your carry on luggage within there guidlines you will be fine.

most of there negative reviews are from the plebs who don't print the passes and don't keep to the luggage rules, there was a bloke in the paper the other day moaning about being charged because he didn't print them off, his excuse being that he couldn't do it at home, but got to the airport extra early in the hope they would do it for free.

its cheap travel, you get what you pay for, and 3 hours on a plane is nothing if you have an ipod and a good book to read

[Stevo985]

Cheers for the Qatar Airways posts chaps.

 

Doesn't really change anything as they're cheapest so I think we're definitely going with them BUt good to know they're decent enough.

 

We will have a 4 hr stop off in Doha though, not ideal.

[thetrees]

 

Best Airlines survey

http://www.worldairlineawards.com/awards_2013/airline2013_top20.htm

It's all about opinions and experiences of course ... Doesn't Trees rate Air Frog as his favourite ??

Personally I wouldn't have half those airlines in my top 20 and Im surprised to see Qantas so high tbh...Asiania were pretty much meh as well

Air Malaysia I flew their a-380 bus class to KL and it was about an hour after take off before I got a drink , my first and second choice of meal wasn't available ... Flight crew were very much meh

BA I'm on about my third beer before we've even got the seat belt lights off .. Thing with BA is on some routes they are very good and on other routes they are a bit meh ... Get the matron type on the old contracts and they are very good , get the new Iberia contract people and they tend to be a little dis-interested ... Get their Vegas route and you get the young pretty blondes as they all volunteer the route so they can have a party night or 2 before they come home

Virgin Australia I mentioned previously in this thread and I was impressed with

Lufthansa I thought were disappointing but again It's been a few years since I've flown them

Emirates and Singapore I agree with, id still have Emirates as my number 1 choice but I think someone else mentioned them and said they were disappointed by them

 

To rate an airline, I find it is the level of service in the economy cabin that is a decent barometer. With Air France I have flown both cabins on several long haul flights in several different directions and the service has been top notch all of the time. I believe that their training is of the highest standard and have never encountered surly or not bothered cabin crew that you get with many other airlines.

 

With Virgin Australia, I think that you may be getting confused with Virgin Blue. VB are the domestic and trans-Tasman low cost carrier, VA are the long haul carrier that mainly flies between the Gold Coast and West Coast USA.

 

And it was me who found Emirates cabin crew to be of a pretty poor standard. I wouldn't rush to use them again.

 

Next LH trip is with Virgin Atlantic - not one of my favourites but a better alternative than BA.

[tonyh29]

 

With Virgin Australia, I think that you may be getting confused with Virgin Blue. VB are the domestic and trans-Tasman low cost carrier, VA are the long haul carrier that mainly flies between the Gold Coast and West Coast USA.

 

 

 

yeah that's the puppies  , Virgin Blue  ... I flew them to Tonga, NZ , Samoa and Fiji ..so don't tend to think of them as Domestic   ...

 

I don'# think they are called that any more though , think they've gone back under the Virgin Australia brand   ?

[drat01]

Ha here is one that would upset tony. The ba flight from Cape Town to joburg is a code share with ........ Air France and KLM ! :-)

[tonyh29]

Ha here is one that would upset tony. The ba flight from Cape Town to joburg is a code share with ........ Air France and KLM ! :-)

 

I'd walk if i were you

 

I flew KLM to Beijing but specifically picked the flights that didn't involve using the Air Frog planes ... thankfully the website makes it clear whose plane you are getting on when you book 

[Dom_Wren]

Have a star alliance award trip on hold, Air canada executive first YYZ-LHR and United Buisness First LHR-IAD, anybody had any experience flying in these classes with these airlines.

[drat01]

Have a star alliance award trip on hold, Air canada executive first YYZ-LHR and United Buisness First LHR-IAD, anybody had any experience flying in these classes with these airlines.

Yup - Air Canada I like, always find the staff particularly friendly and you feel that you are the customer rather than on BA where they make you feel as though you are doing them a favour and getting in the way of their personal life etc.

 

Decent amenities on board - not the best but certainly not the worst. Used to use AC a lot for trip to Calgary and often got top upgrades etc.

 

United I think have improved a lot and getting their act together .... the fact you are going into one of my least favourite airports though !

[tonyh29]

Do you not like BA Ian .. you've never mentioned it

[drat01]

Do you not like BA Ian .. you've never mentioned it

This weekend I am on them again (plus their off-shoot Iberia) .... Oh joy :-)

[tonyh29]

 

Do you not like BA Ian .. you've never mentioned it

This weekend I am on them again (plus their off-shoot Iberia) .... Oh joy :-)

 

 

I'll have another word in Willie's ear make sure you get the Z class  treatment

[drat01]

 

 

Do you not like BA Ian .. you've never mentioned it

This weekend I am on them again (plus their off-shoot Iberia) .... Oh joy :-)

 

 

I'll have another word in Willie's ear make sure you get the Z class  treatment

 

That goes for anyone with a vowel in their name :-)

[Dom_Wren]

Cheers drat, did some research and both look decent

I am debating on wether to book a trip on aa in 1st on the new 77w, anybody done this. I have some more miles to use, I've heard it's probably the best first class of the legacy carriers and some others too!

[tonyh29]

far as im aware the 77w has the same floor space as the 777's that most airlines run  ..it probably just depends on how the airline have configured it

 

it has larger fuel tanks than previous configs of 777's  so if your plane goes under the radar you might make it to land though