The Ups and Downs of Airlines and Air Travel

[pubic_assistance]

On 1/8/2023 at 8:38 AM, BenjaminNicholas said:

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 been a steady decline for the last two decades. Agreed.

But I have to say we have pretty much hit bottom. I can't imagine a more uncomfortable environment if they tried. Most standard American brand carriers are a joke with the exception of JetBlue's international flights.

[+ nycman]

11 hours ago, azdr0710 said:

for those curious, like me.......

https://www.qantas.com/au/en/about-us/our-company/fleet/qantaslink-a220.html

 

Wait…. @mike carey is squealing over a domestic flight with "ok" business seats?

Something is wrong. Can someone go check on him?

grin

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

3 hours ago, pubic_assistance said:

It's been a steady decline for the last two decades. Agreed.

But I have to say we have pretty much hit bottom. I can't imagine a more uncomfortable environment if they tried. Most standard American brand carriers are a joke with the exception of JetBlue's international flights.

I've never been the biggest fan of B6. 

They do a fine domestic product with enthusiastic crews, but having flown in Mint Studio overseas, the seat wasn't designed well for a tall/muscular guy.  It had little privacy due to the very tight herringbone design of cabin seating.

I will say their catering is solid.  And the FAs are some of the nicest out there.  Very happy employees.

 

[+ azdr0710]

1 hour ago, BenjaminNicholas said:

I've never been the biggest fan of B6. 

They do a fine domestic product with enthusiastic crews, but having flown in Mint Studio overseas, the seat wasn't designed well for a tall/muscular guy.  It had little privacy due to the very tight herringbone design of cabin seating.

I will say their catering is solid.  And the FAs are some of the nicest out there.  Very happy employees.

 

keep in mind that JetBlue is still considered a "low-cost" carrier to some, so don't expect even their Mint thing to be utterly impressive.....I certainly agree about enthusiastic FAs.....on my one and only time on JetBlue (they are not dominant in my area), a male FA happily offered to put my carry-on in the overhead as I sauntered down the aisle......though I'm able-bodied and capable, that was an impressive surprise and has never been seen by me, otherwise........the overall vibe of JetBlue seemed pleasant and happy and happy employees are crucial to successful companies......

Edited March 8 by azdr0710

[mike carey]

10 hours ago, nycman said:

Wait…. @mike carey is squealing over a domestic flight with "ok" business seats?

Something is wrong. Can someone go check on him?

grin

Lol, my sincere thanks for your concern, and you didn't mention that it's a short domestic flight. I can assure you that the traveller in me is significantly less excited than the avgeekish part. It's a new aircraft type for Australia and an aeroplane that has been widely greeted in the FF blogs as being innovative in its 'passenger experience' (to use the jargon). I won't be wearing a Qantas A220 t-shirt by the pool at InnDulge!

[mike carey]

On 3/9/2024 at 11:20 AM, mike carey said:

Lol, my sincere thanks for your concern, and you didn't mention that it's a short domestic flight. I can assure you that the traveller in me is significantly less excited than the avgeekish part. It's a new aircraft type for Australia and an aeroplane that has been widely greeted in the FF blogs as being innovative in its 'passenger experience' (to use the jargon). I won't be wearing a Qantas A220 t-shirt by the pool at InnDulge!

Well, that didn't happen, IRROPS intervened!

My flight home was scheduled to be from LAX to Melbourne but unexpected headwinds resulted in it diverting to Sydney. Easy, refuel and go on, right? Well no. Given the circumstances Qantas handled it reasonably well.

Whether the result of crew duty and an inordinate delay that would have occasioned or the requirements of Australian immigration and customs we had to collect our bags and clear arrival formalities in Sydney. Whether they chose the best solution is a separate question, but their execution of the arrangements were a case study in how to recover well and at the same time a text book example of how to fuck up the communications.

On the aeroplane on arrival the flight crew told us that the flight would terminate in Sydney but they didn't know whether the aircraft would continue to Melbourne with a different flight number (and they didn't address what passengers whose destination was Sydney would do) or we'd clear customs and be rebooked on domestic flights (SYD-MEL is one of the five busiest airport pairs in the world, so onward flights wouldn't be too hard). Fairly quickly the 'clear customs' option was confirmed and we were told an extra SYD-MEL flight had been scheduled (and that SYD pax were free to collect their bags and leave). So far so good.

Quickly the 'shit happens' fairy intervened. The queues for the passport checking machines were slow, but eventually I had cleared it and had my entry ticket in my hand. Then, a problem! The automatic final entry gates hadn't been programmed to expect QF94 pax in Sydney so they didn't work and we had to queue again to be cleared by an immigration officer. Sigh, beyond Qantas' control but not a good look, nor a good first impression for visitors.

Once through that baggage collection and customs took moments (comparatively), and at the Qantas domestic bag drop/check-in area they had reconfigured it to handle our flight separately from other pax, that was smooth and the line kept moving, albeit not at an express pace.

While what we were told by the crew and ground handling staff was accurate (and importantly told us if they didn't yet know something), the overall communications were appalling, as the digital comms were invariably at odds with what actual people were telling us (I have no idea whether the digital part had any human input or if it was all system-generated, but I don't care, it was wrong, incorrect texts, incorrect e-mails that didn't actually matter as I didn't see them till I was home, and incorrect information on their app, but hey, the digital comms all said the same [wrong] thing!).

Surprisingly, not everyone was as sanguine about what was happening as I was and there were plenty of 'worst airline ever', 'totally incompetent' and 'I'll never fly Qantas again' comments being thrown about. There was also a fair amount of unfortunate near-abusive commentary directed at the ground staff member there to answer questions.

I had to laugh, in the five hours after we landed in Sydney, I received 10 (ten) text messages telling me the supposed timing for the new QF94 from Sydney International Terminal to Melbourne, the last when I was in baggage claim in Canberra!

Inconvenient for many, I'm sure, distressing for some who travel rarely, no doubt, but if you could step back for a moment it was interesting to observe the responses, both corporate and individual, and not for the first time I saw a sort of camaraderie among the people going through the 'ordeal'. Okay, so I didn't get my first A220 flight, but I was booked onto a Sydney-Canberra flight, and was home before I would have been on my original schedule. Oh, and I didn't lose the points upgrade I'd scored on the MEL-CBR flight, they put me in J to Canberra.

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

44 minutes ago, mike carey said:

Inconvenient for many, I'm sure, distressing for some who travel rarely, no doubt, but if you could step back for a moment it was interesting to observe the responses, both corporate and individual, and not for the first time I saw a sort of camaraderie among the people going through the 'ordeal'. Okay, so I didn't get my first A220 flight, but I was booked onto a Sydney-Canberra flight, and was home before I would have been on my original schedule. Oh, and I didn't lose the points upgrade I'd scored on the MEL-CBR flight, they put me in J to Canberra.

And this, in a nutshell, is what separates the wheat from the chaff in the frequent flier world:  People either know enough to be proactive, get themselves protected and sit patiently, or they go fully batshit crazy, letting their anger get the best of them and making all sorts of wacky comments.

I'd love to see most of them never do business with QF again.  Doubt they could make that happen.

You're a trooper Mike 👍

I tip my hat to you knowing full-well that you almost universally have long haul flights if you want to get anywhere.  When the shit hits your fan, it's a gigantic dump and a very powerful fan.

[edinbrooklyn]

I’ve been in the BA family for years, out of necessity.  Heathrow was a bit of a disaster post-Brexit/lockdown but it has improved at least for business travel. Moving to AF now that I can travel more flexibly. Air travel within the US has always been unpleasant.

[+ Vegas_Millennial]

4 hours ago, edinbrooklyn said:

I’ve been in the BA family for years, out of necessity.  Heathrow was a bit of a disaster post-Brexit/lockdown but it has improved at least for business travel. Moving to AF now that I can travel more flexibly. Air travel within the US has always been unpleasant.

I flew British Airways (BA) business class (Club World) for the first time last year on my first flight to Europe.  I was impressed with everything BA had to offer.  However, it was queer that London Heathrow (LHR) required passengers to go through security again to fly on to destinations within Europe; and, I found the boarding areas strange as well.  Passengers were processed by boarding group into a waiting lounge, then were all let onto the jetway at once when the plane arrived.  But the quality and diversity of business class lounges for intercontinental passengers impressed me enough to compensate for the oddities of LHR.

[edinbrooklyn]

The second round of security is an EU, post Brexit thing. It’s become a lot more efficient. But still . . .

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

1 hour ago, Vegas_Millennial said:

I flew British Airways (BA) business class (Club World) for the first time last year on my first flight to Europe.  I was impressed with everything BA had to offer.  However, it was queer that London Heathrow (LHR) required passengers to go through security again to fly on to destinations within Europe; and, I found the boarding areas strange as well.  Passengers were processed by boarding group into a waiting lounge, then were all let onto the jetway at once when the plane arrived.  But the quality and diversity of business class lounges for intercontinental passengers impressed me enough to compensate for the oddities of LHR.

LHR T3 has some of the best airline lounges in the world.

Cathay F and Qantas are my favorites: Always a stop at both (one for noodles, the other for gin) when flying out of LHR.

Were you on a BA flight with the 'new' Club Suite?

https://thepointsguy.com/reviews/british-airways-club-suites-777/

I've flown in them twice and as a tall guy, the doors didn't help it feel spacious to me.  Not excited about all J-class products now going to these flimsy sliding doors, but clearly I'm in the minority on this.  

What I did like was BA's flight crew.  They were fantastic.

 

[edinbrooklyn]

13 minutes ago, BenjaminNicholas said:

LHR T3 has some of the best airline lounges in the world.

Cathay F and Qantas are my favorites: Always a stop at both (one for noodles, the other for gin) when flying out of LHR.

Were you on a BA flight with the 'new' Club Suite?

https://thepointsguy.com/reviews/british-airways-club-suites-777/

I've flown in them twice and as a tall guy, the doors didn't help it feel spacious to me.  Not excited about all J-class products now going to these flimsy sliding doors, but clearly I'm in the minority on this.  

What I did like was BA's flight crew.  They were fantastic.

 

I don’t get the appeal of the doors. The first time I saw them I thought “prison pods,” worse actually . . . 

[+ Vegas_Millennial]

31 minutes ago, BenjaminNicholas said:

LHR T3 has some of the best airline lounges in the world.

I agree.  Although my airline lounge experience is minimal (only 8 lounges visited to date), my own conclusion was that LHR T3 has some of the best.  The only better lounge experience I had was at Sydney; and that was partly because I wasn't even aware of airport lounges before that trip.

31 minutes ago, BenjaminNicholas said:

Cathay F and Qantas are my favorites: Always a stop at both (one for noodles, the other for gin) when flying out of LHR.

I spent my time at Cathay Business Class.  The showers and shower amenities alone were a memorable experience!  I'm not much of a noodle fan so my plan was to use the showers at Cathay then hop on over to Quantas for their food and drink.  But I stayed at Cathay Business the entire time because Quantas was at capacity the day I was at LHR.

31 minutes ago, BenjaminNicholas said:

Were you on a BA flight with the 'new' Club Suite?

 

Were you on a BA flight with the 'new' Club Suite?

Yes, I was.  As a big and tall guy myself, I was amazed at how small I made the enclosed suite look in a picture!  Like jam on an English Muffin, I filled every nook and cranny 😂.  WestJet had a similar seat product on my return trip, but without the door I believe, and I found it just as comfortable if not more so.  The door really doesn't matter to me now that I've experienced it.

31 minutes ago, BenjaminNicholas said:

What I did like was BA's flight crew.  They were fantastic.

I've always had fantastic flight crew flying Business or First Class.  What set British Airways above the rest, for me, was the food and drink selection and quality compared to other airlines.  And, it was the first time I ever ate a full English Breakfast, which was delightful 🙂

For comparison, I've only flown long haul business class on British Airways, WestJet, and Hawaiian Airlines.  This autumn I fly Air Canada business class for the first time.

Edited Thursday at 07:42 PM by Vegas_Millennial

[+ Vegas_Millennial]

19 minutes ago, edinbrooklyn said:

I don’t get the appeal of the doors. The first time I saw them I thought “prison pods,” worse actually . . . 

I didn't mind the suite doors, I just won't go out of my way to choose an airline that has them.