Airline Reviews & Opinions

RUH-JED. Another good flight with Nas Air. The flight left on time, was not too crowded, and an emergency-exit seat was definitely appreciated. The Arab and Eastern European cabin crew made an effort to seat us comfortably, serve promptly, collect rubbish, and smile throughout. While the plane was old (it seemed to be a second-hand ex-Spanish Airbus), it didn't have the tired feeling of many other discount carriers.

UME-BMA, economy. This little Swedish airline brings back what flying used to be in the good old days. The flight was an 1 hour short hop between Umea (a small city up north) and Bromma (a tiny, central airport of Stockholm), in an Avro RJ. Plane was clean, and flight attendants nice - free newspapers (Aftonbladet and some in-flight magazine), followed by a coffee service, a free meal (sandwich, fresh orange juice and chocolate cake)! Before landing, we were given hot towels and sweets.

I have been flying SV for many years, domestic and International, short medium and long haul. I feel that a 3 star rating is accurate. Poorly maintained (in terms of cabin amenities) aircraft, slow modernization initiatives and not beefing up their customer service persona makes it a disappointment to fly. Their major hub JED is a very sad and annoying facility (even with the recent upgrades) with RUH being a lot better but still below average. The airline employees lack the attitude of service for passengers let alone "customer" or "clientele". Their website is not a well rounded information resource nor is it truly up to standards for booking and checking in. Airport lounges are poorly staffed and have little to offer. FFP needs to be more in tune with other airlines. The most consistent advantage of SV however, would their good departure and arrival times mainly for international flights.

I have to travel with this company every month. Generally it seems that security is at low priority. Old shabby planes, sometimes with defect seats, defect or missing safety belts and during the safety brief they speak about the safety folder in the pocket in front of me - but there is nothing in that pocket Every |Iranian has to use their cellphone during take-off and landing and the crew don't do anything.

GCM-MIA connecting to a intercontinental flight, 7.20 am departure a very pleasant surprise as you walk to the plane 737-300 a brand new livery, the interior is fully refurnish, standard configuration, economy seat are very comfortable with lots of legroom, 32, breakfast was served and a very pleasant and hard working cabin crew even manage to pass twice with a selection of complimentary beverages, on a 75 minute flight this is unheard on most of the other airline even on longer flights.

Pleasant flight from MDL-RGN touching down in HEH. Aircraft not full but comfortable enough even if it had been. Open seating could have been a problem if the plane had been full. Flight early into RGN. 0820 departure almost bearable!! Flying internally in Myanmar is actually a rather pleasant experience. Again the image perception given to us by the tv media!

Stockholm to Bombay via Moscow. The first flight was fine. The 6 hour stop over in Moscow was terrible. If at all possible would recommend not using this airport. Unhelpful staff, exorbitant prices. The 2nd leg of the journey started with Russian teenagers drinking their duty free alcohol on board and playing loud Goa trance music on their ghetto blaster. The crew did little to make them stop and we finally agreed with some of the teenagers to swap seats, after arguing with them for 10 minutes. No English or newspapers were offered. One of the 2 choices for dinner ran out half way down the plane.

Quebec City to Toronto. This was my third time with Porter, and though I've been generally satisfied with the airline on the two first times, I've had bad luck. Once Porter lost my luggage and another time my flight out of Newark was delayed by 4 hours. But Porter compensated me for both mishaps. This time, the flight was on time, the plane was very clean and the service efficient, and my bags weren't lost either. It's a pleasure to be able to arrive right in Toronto city center, but it seems like the island airport has already got too small for Porter's growing business. The domestic luggage claim area is ridiculously small - a tiny little room on the way out. And even though Porter's planes, the Dash 8s, are among the "quietest and most advanced modern turboprops", they're still significantly louder and shakier than jets, and the landing at Toronto island always feels rough to me. All in all, Porter's a great alternative that I wouldn't want to use every time.

JFK-FCO and FCO-JFK in economy. On both legs of the trip, check-in/gate staff and FAs were attentive and courteous. They offered to block an extra seat so my four-year old daughter could have extra space to sleep. While the food was average, the amount was certainly adequate. The FAs made frequent rounds with drinks and they served a light snack before landing. On the trip from FCO-JFK, the gate staff promptly preboarded an elderly disabled woman and families with children (including ours). My only concern is that the planes are beginning to show signs of wear, particularly the condition of the seats and the IFE system. However, after numerous unpleasant experiences with Delta on flights from New York to Italy, namely the rude, disgruntled and unresponsive staff and the filthy cabins, I have decided to stick with Eurofly. The pleasant attitude of the staff is the deciding factor.

New Orleans (MSY)-San Francisco (SFO) via Houston (IAH), Memorial Day weekend. Came prepared for the worst, and was pleasantly surprised. All flights left and arrived on or even a bit ahead of schedule. Voluntarily bumped off IAH-SFO flight; flew into San Jose (in First Class) four hours later, which didn't conflict with plans too much. Gate agents were very pleasant to deal with. Returned on red-eye flight, which was a bit uncomfortable; couldn't get much sleep even with exit row seat. Cabin crew courteous, but more so in first-class. Good experience overall.

I did some flights with Aigle Azur on Paris - Hassi Messaoud route (Algeria, for those who are not familiar). This flight has only one type of customer: oil & gas people. I have found the service as fair overall, crew friendliness and meals are actually in good category (crew friendlier then Air France). It's a pity Aigle Azur does not have baggage transfer handling agreement at CDG, which means that each time we transit at CDG to / from other airlines, we need to go through the immigration to recover our luggage, no automatic transfer between Aigle Azur and other airlines at CDG (leading to LOSS of luggage at CDG for those not in the know, such as in my case). I hope they could one day operate inside Algeria (the company owner is Algerian - French), since with the local monopoly by Air Algerie, the service is non existent.

LHR-BHR-BKK in Economy. Very slow check-in at LHR due to full aircraft and inadequate check-in counter layout. Both legs on B777-300ER. Our family of 3 ended up with seats all over the cabin without any reasonable explanation other than 'Sorry the plane is overbooked'. This was however addressed at the gate by a lovely lady who managed to relocate two passengers to allow us to sit next to each other. Seat comfort good, sufficient legroom, IFE worked well (besides being a Jet Airways plane = more Bollywood than Hollywood!). Food average, crew overall friendly. Noise levels a torture due to several families with crying babies & children in our section! BKK-BHR-LHR in Business Speedy check in, first leg on B777, second leg on old A330. B777 offers herring-bone seating with flatbed seats - very good comfort, food average but whole experience totally marred by 2 families with 6 children aged 4 - 8 travelling in Business Class. Constant screaming and running around was most annoying, and the crew didn't want to do anything about it. A330 was an old plane, rather uncomfortable seat with very limited reclining options, less than half the IFE selection available compared to the Jet Airways B777-300ER, a full cabin but at least no children. Some of the cheapest fares around for both Y and C Class on long-haul flights; planes on time & looked well maintained. Service standards, IFE and seating options all over the place - which explains the low fares!

I hadn't heard of them when I booked my flight from the UK to Brisbane - went on the cheapest available and Brunei was the cheapest by a good stretch. Left LHR on time landed at Dubai for a refuel - through security back to the gate and back onboard the plane. Was a bit annoyed had to do all that just for a refuel. From there to Bandar seri Begawan - had an hour at that airport, nice and clean. Plane with PTV's - straight to BNE. The meals were okay - both myself and 14yr old son ate them. Iknew it was a dry flight so that didnt bother me - cabin crew always coming round offering soft drinks. From BNE was a bit disappointed there were no PTVs, only the pull down screens, and for a 6.5 hr journey with a 14yr old its not great fun! We were in the middle of the plane for this stretch - a bit squashed in all. At BWN had a 4hr stop there which went pretty quick for such a small airport - left there on time and hoping this plane would have PTV's which it did. We had window seats, we had the quick re-fuel at dubai and back to London on time. Again the food was fine, not great. Cabin crew were a nice friendly lot. All in all a great flight and great airline.

e-ticket

MUC-BCN. Boarding was delayed by about 20 mins for some unknown reason, and Spanair were not about to provide the answer. No apologies were made whatsoever about the fact that we left Munich and landed in Barcelona late, both the cabin crew and the pilots merely ignored the fact. Seat pitch was incredibly tight - never seen so many seats in an A320. Thankfully the passenger in front did not recline their seat. A light lunch consisting of a small sandwich served in an unnecessarily wasteful plastic lunchbox was accompanied by a miniature cup of tea, no refills, and a choice of non- alcoholic beverage. A small sweet encouraging you to upgrade to a higher fare class (mine said "business") was given to each passenger just before landing. The baggage arrived promptly in BCN. For a short flight it was bearable.

Gol is serving more and more regular routes in Brazil. It is starting to expand in the MercoSul as well. But the low cost aspect is all relative: some of their tariffs can exceed TAM´s. Still, efficient checking / boarding procedures are still worth the interest, and so are the relatively new 737 operated. The only negative point really would be the snacks provided: cereal bars on all domestic legs. Don´t forget to bring your own sandwiches if your flight makes several stop-over.

LGW-LCA on Eurocypria as part of our holiday to Cyprus. Outbound we were delayed 22 hours due to a technical fault with the aircraft's pa system. Very badly handled by the company as they kept feeding us poor marooned passengers incorrect information, hiding behind the handling company Swissport. We were held at the departure gate for four hours, in the middle of the night, until they decided the plane was not going to fly. They used many excuses to dodge the fact that replacement parts did not turn up from Cyprus or Heathrow as first led to believe. Anyone would have thought that this was a special plane but it was no more than a common B737, surely they could have done a deal with another airline for the replacement parts? The outbound flight, for me, was a painful experience as I had to endure the 'I'm on holiday so I'm going to recline the seat fully' person in front of me, making the poor legroom even worse! Having endured the ordeal outbound we did not have much hope for the return journey. Needless to say everything was on time & as a bonus we were the last to check in so we got extra legroom seats for free, small compensation for losing a day of our holiday!

Jakarta CGK to Manado MDC and return. Shiny new A319 aircraft was spotlessly clean with reasonable seat pitch for a 3 hour domestic run. Good to see local airlines updating fleet after years of elderly 737's. Check-in staff and cabin crew all friendly and efficient - plenty of in flight info and extra tea and coffee offered after meal service. Food was disappointing, however, with a savoury snack and small pastry insufficient for 3 hour flight. The first-world flying experience in a new plane contrasted with distinctly third-world baggage reclaim at both ends, with painfully slow service and pesky taxi touts.

HKG-Hel Business class return on A340. Nearly lie-flat bed which gives you comfortable and spacious flight. FA very attentive and FA to passengers ratio in J class is very high. The inflight meal is excellent with champagne, soup, salad, main dish, dessert and different choices of fruit. Sitting arrangement is good for couples. Inflight entertainment needs to be improved because the movie choices is very limited.

Dublin to Dubrovnik. The cabin crew was friendly and able to cater for passengers requests. Dubrovnik prove that even in the current economic climate it is still possible to offer that little extra (complementary tea and coffee and croatian brandy) to make your journey more enjoyable. There was a short delay but this was explained and apologised for.