The Ups and Downs of Airlines and Air Travel

[menaughty]

2 minutes ago, BenjaminNicholas said:

Yep. 

While it's oneworld, it's not an airline I'd run to fly again.  Their ops are even worse than AA.

But, with xanax and glass of red wine, anything is tolerable.

That bad!  Wow

I am thinking to go to Barcelona. The flights suitable to me are two (AA & Delta).

When I check AA they show flight operated by Iberia and Delta shows flight operated by Air France. I have never flown with Iberia or Air France. So idk which to choose.

 

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

1 minute ago, menaughty said:

That bad!  Wow

I am thinking to go to Barcelona. The flights suitable to me are two (AA & Delta).

When I check AA they show flight operated by Iberia and Delta shows flight operated by Air France. I have never flown with Iberia or Air France. So idk which to choose.

 

AF, always.

And if you can, spring for La Premiere.  

...  And drink them dry of vintage Dom

[mike carey]

2 hours ago, BenjaminNicholas said:

 

AF, always.

And if you can, spring for La Premiere.  

...  And drink them dry of vintage Dom

A reason for signing up for Flying Blue*, access to La Premiere award tics. Hypothetically, at least.

*Not good value for accruing status from DL domestic flights.

[+ nycman]

10 minutes ago, mike carey said:

A reason for signing up for Flying Blue*, access to La Premiere award tics.

I’ve never once seen a La Premiere award show up…..ever. 

Granted I don’t follow them as closely as I do other airlines, 
but they only have 4 La Premiere seats on any given plane.

[EZEtoGRU]

My Iberia experiences are all pre-COVID so I have no idea how they are now.  I have done multiple transatlantic flights with them in business class.  One was very good and another was very average. None of them was terrible.  I have also done several flights with them between MAD and LHR.  Again , all in business class and all pretty good.  Iberia was definitely a better on-board experience within Europe than BA Club Europe.  

As others have stated, Air France Le Premier is all the rage now.  The seat.  The privacy.  The food.

Comparing airport experiences, I avoid CDG like the plague.  You are likely to be taking a bus to/from at least one of your flights.  I hate having to take buses to board a plane in Europe.  Of course on Le Premier you will be driven to the plane in a private car.  But if you're in Business or economy...you'll be on the bus.  MAD is a busy airport also, but your chances of having to take a bus to the plane are hugely reduced.  That's a big plus in my book.  

Definitely go with AF La Premier if you can swing it.  If you're traveling in business or economy, it's a toss-up in my book.  You'll probably have a better flight experience on AF but a less hassled airport experience on IB.

Edited August 31, 2022 by EZEtoGRU

[mike carey]

3 hours ago, coriolis888 said:

I know that lounge well, as I travel a lot and have been in that lounge many times.

The "Polaris" lounges are United's best lounges.

I hope you found the separate area of the lounge where you can sit, like in a restaurant, and order whatever good things that are on the menu.   You do not get a bill for the food and service.   Personally, I leave a nice tip because of the excellent service and the quality of the food cooked to order.

There is no Polaris lounge at Heathrow, in London.  However, there is a nice United lounge, at least there was only a regular United lounge, back in May.   

Above is a London/Heathrow United lounge menu from last May.  

As you can tell from the menu, the lounge is okay but just okay.  It is not a Polaris lounge.

Have a splendid time in jolly old U.K., Ducky. 

 

 

3 hours ago, coriolis888 said:

The airline he is using, United Airlines, is a splendid airline.  I have more than three million miles with them.  When I visit Australia, where you live, I always take United.  

I formerly found it funny about the travel time to Australia and return considering the International Date Line. 

As you likely know, although the flight is more than a dozen hours in duration, according to the International Date Line, we get back to Los Angeles or San Francisco, before we leave Australia (according to the calendar).

Of course, there is a 24 hour time change upon crossing the date line.  

Great comments. As it happened, within minutes of Epigonos mentioning it (well maybe a little longer) there was a post in the One Mile at a Time blog about United's lounges. In that, Ben rated the Polaris Lounges as the best biz class US airline lounge in the country so I'm sure Epi had a good visit to it. There may be an SQ lounge at LHR but even if it's in the same terminal as UA departures Epi may need to have UA Gold status rather than a UA J ticket to use it.

I haven't flown across the pond with UA yet (mainly QF but also NZ* and AC) but as you may have noticed in things I've posted I'm more likely to try SQ or CX (which I have flown to the UK) next. (Oh, I've also flown across the Pacific on LAN [now LATAM] but not to the US, obviously!) And yes, arriving before you left (eastbound) and missing a day (westbound) takes some getting used to the first time!

*It was actually TE at the time (for Tasman Empire Airways Limited, its original name) as Air New Zealand didn't change its airline code until 1990.

[mike carey]

Qantas Airbus A380 flight QF1 from Singapore to London Heathrow made an emergency landing in Baku (in AZ but not the AZ you might immediately think of) on Friday morning after sensors detected smoke in a cargo hold. The indication was apparently a sensor fault.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/dec/23/qantas-plane-en-route-to-london-makes-emergency-landing-in-azerbaijan

[+ Charlie]

Whew! Fire in the cargo hold is one of the worst things that can happen on a flight.

[+ Charlie]

On 8/29/2022 at 7:07 PM, menaughty said:

Has anyone over here flown with Iberia airlines?

How is it?

The only time was from Madrid to Marrakech. There was nothing memorable about it.

[mike carey]

'Good airline meal' is often asserted to be an oxymoron, but I've had meals I enjoyed, especially in light of the difficulty of preparing and serving food in constrained spaces and time-frames, and how insensitive our palates can be on a plane. Of course 'enjoyed' and 'good' are answering different questions. This list of 'bests' for 2022 from one of the travel sites is interesting, whether you see it as best of a bad lot or as giving hope that you might actually have a good experience.

https://liveandletsfly.com/top-10-airline-meals-2022/

Slow cooked braised lamb shanks can be one of the most satisfying dishes, falling off the bone and having a smooth, almost gelatinous mouth feel. I'm taking vicarious credit for his top-rated dish from Delta, even though their 'Australian' lamb was served on a flight from Detroit to Amsterdam. (I don't have my own recipe to share so I'm not going to cross-post to the Cooking forum, others may wish to follow up over there, but this post is about the airline connection.)

 

[+ FrankR]

3 hours ago, mike carey said:

'Good airline meal' is often asserted to be an oxymoron, but I've had meals I enjoyed, especially in light of the difficulty of preparing and serving food in constrained spaces and time-frames, and how insensitive our palates can be on a plane. Of course 'enjoyed' and 'good' are answering different questions. This list of 'bests' for 2022 from one of the travel sites is interesting, whether you see it as best of a bad lot or as giving hope that you might actually have a good experience.

https://liveandletsfly.com/top-10-airline-meals-2022/

Slow cooked braised lamb shanks can be one of the most satisfying dishes, falling off the bone and having a smooth, almost gelatinous mouth feel. I'm taking vicarious credit for his top-rated dish from Delta, even though their 'Australian' lamb was served on a flight from Detroit to Amsterdam. (I don't have my own recipe to share so I'm not going to cross-post to the Cooking forum, others may wish to follow up over there, but this post is about the airline connection.)

 

I just dont understand why plane galleys don’t come fitted with Crockpots….I mean we are gonna be stuck on the plane for hours anyway, may as well use it productively! 😋

[+ nycman]

8 hours ago, mike carey said:

https://liveandletsfly.com/top-10-airline-meals-2022/

I wouldn’t have eaten any of those "meals".

A little cheese and crackers is my standard airplane "meal’, 
with a glass of champagne if I’m lucky enough to be in first. 

I used to have a friend whose butler packed fancy homemade
”to go’ boxes  for trips on transatlantic flights. They were amazing. 
And the butler was a stud. 

[mike carey]

On 1/1/2023 at 2:06 AM, nycman said:

A little cheese and crackers is my standard airplane "meal’, 
with a glass of champagne if I’m lucky enough to be in first. 

I had a quite serviceable Thai green chicken curry on a recent flight, served without my having requested it with a rather full glass of sparking wine (it was what I had had as a predeparture drink). It came with crackers and cheese (commercial packaged snack rather than on a plate). It was on domestic business class, there's no first here.

[+ keroscenefire]

On 8/31/2022 at 7:38 AM, EZEtoGRU said:

 

Definitely go with AF La Premier if you can swing it.  If you're traveling in business or economy, it's a toss-up in my book.  You'll probably have a better flight experience on AF but a less hassled airport experience on IB.

I took Air France economy in May on my trip to Paris. It was the nicest economy experience I ever had. They give out wine and champaign with dinner and cognac with dessert. Nice selection of movies, convenient phone chargers, friendly stewards, decent blanket/pillow and the food was above average. CDG is a weird airport but there were no busses involved to board. I liked it a lot more than my United flight to London in 2019.

[+ nycman]

AF La Premier is always ridiculously over priced. 

I recently paid about $4k return for a trip JFK-CDG on Lufthansa in First.
Same trip on AF La Premier was $10k. Granted, there was no layover in 
MUC on AF, but for $6k I can chill in the LH First Class lounge in MUC
for an hour…..no problem. 

[EZEtoGRU]

3 hours ago, keroscenefire said:

I took Air France economy in May on my trip to Paris. It was the nicest economy experience I ever had. They give out wine and champaign with dinner and cognac with dessert. Nice selection of movies, convenient phone chargers, friendly stewards, decent blanket/pillow and the food was above average. CDG is a weird airport but there were no busses involved to board. I liked it a lot more than my United flight to London in 2019.

I'm glad your trip on AF was nice.  They can be very good.  I assume you were not connecting at CDG....hence no bus to get you to the smaller plane to a different European city.  The widebody arrivals often get preference for the gates with jet bridges.

[+ keroscenefire]

1 hour ago, EZEtoGRU said:

I'm glad your trip on AF was nice.  They can be very good.  I assume you were not connecting at CDG....hence no bus to get you to the smaller plane to a different European city.  The widebody arrivals often get preference for the gates with jet bridges.

True...I began and ended in Paris and took trains instead. Interesting to know they do that as a connection though.

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

Enjoyable air travel isn't dead, but you have to work to get there.

Just flew DFW-LHR round trip, all on AA metal.  F in a three-class 777W there and back in J on a 777-2.  Crews couldn't have been nicer, menus were decent, amenity kit is still a piece of shit (but always has been).  Ground services in DFW and LHR are some of the best out there for One World flyers.

And for what could have been easily a $15k holiday roundtrip fare, was on a $486 basic economy ticket.

Loyalty pays.  As does knowing how to properly work the elite system.

 

 

[+ nycman]

2 minutes ago, BenjaminNicholas said:

And for what could have been easily a $15k holiday roundtrip fare, was on a $486 basic economy ticket.

Loyalty pays.  As does knowing how to properly work the elite system.

 

You dirty mother fucker!

I am green with envy….and of course it’s not the first time.

Glad you had a nice trip!

[mike carey]

7 hours ago, nycman said:

You dirty mother fucker!

I am green with envy….and of course it’s not the first time.

Glad you had a nice trip!

But remember, for you to repeat it you'd have to go to Dallas!

[pubic_assistance]

I wish they would drug us / stack us in sleeping pods and wake us up when we arrive at our destination.

Air travel today, is humiliating unless you're paying for the ultra luxury of private jet travel .

Edited January 7, 2023 by pubic_assistance

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

On 1/6/2023 at 8:51 PM, pubic_assistance said:

Air travel today, is humiliating unless you're paying for the ultra luxury of private jet travel .

Today?  It's been what it's been for awhile now.  Decades, in fact.

It's a necessary evil for some people to fly regularly.  You just learn the system and make it work for you.

Sure, private jets are nice, but they're entirely wasteful and, honestly, have their own set of issues.

[+ nycman]

On 1/5/2023 at 9:45 PM, mike carey said:

But remember, for you to repeat it you'd have to go to Dallas!

…and have a killer smile, and a rocking body, and a personality that can melt an iceberg. 

I have a feeling all of those factors were in play in this “transaction”.

The boy is no fool. 

grin

[+ azdr0710]

August 14, 1978........be careful what you ask for.........

[mike carey]

In yet another PR move (Me, cynical? Heaven forfend!) Qantas has again extended the validity of its Covid travel credits, well, sort of (I've just used mine, thanks for asking). Due to expire on 31 Dec 23, they can now be used for travel through to 31 Dec 24. This is only a 'sort of' extension as people still have to use them to book before EOY23 but travel can be in the ensuing 12 months. I had missed the previous proviso that until now travel had to be complete by EOY23.

I expect a flood of gratitude on social media in 3, 2, 1 ...