Best and worst airline experience

Message
Author
Pontius Navigator
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 14669
Joined: Fri Jul 07, 2017 8:17 am
Location: Gravity be the clue
Gender:
Age: 80

Re: Best and worst airline experience

#21 Post by Pontius Navigator » Mon Dec 11, 2017 9:59 am

Air France, my first business class flight, sitting in glorious sunshine, glass of champagne in hand as the cattle embarked.

Emirates - worst - sitting next to a local whose personal hygiene was non existent.

Emirates - best - business class upgrade on 10 hour leg to Cape Town.

Capetonian

Re: Best and worst airline experience

#22 Post by Capetonian » Mon Dec 11, 2017 10:13 am

Worst EU airline overall for everything is the fourth rate subsidiary of a third rate airline, Vueling.

Best EU by far,. Swiss.

User avatar
Alisoncc
Chief Pilot
Chief Pilot
Posts: 4260
Joined: Sat Aug 22, 2015 7:20 am
Location: Arrakis
Gender:
Age: 80

Re: Best and worst airline experience

#23 Post by Alisoncc » Mon Dec 11, 2017 11:44 am

ian16th wrote:Ah PanAm!

Never had the privilege of travelling right up the front, but a grateful employer did pay for business class.

PanAm, PanAm, PanAm. A truly magic crowd. Made quite few trips into Templehof in PanAm 707's up front. Did some mods to their weather radar to increase penetration. Flying along the corridor they weren't allowed to avoid nasties by going around, having to pick their way through to the best of their ability.

Alison
Rev Mother Bene Gesserit.

Sent from my PDP11/05 running RSX-11D via an ASR33 (TTY)

User avatar
Smeagol
Capt
Capt
Posts: 1488
Joined: Mon Jul 23, 2018 7:15 pm
Location: UK, Carrot Cruncher Country
Gender:
Age: 72

Re: Best and worst airline experience

#24 Post by Smeagol » Sun Jul 29, 2018 2:13 pm

Best:
Probably a flying First from Zurich to Kuwait on Swissair in 1986. I had been to Zurich on business and travelled with Company Chairman (a very nice Kuwaiti gent - and there are not many of them!). Missed the Kuwait Airways flight on which I had been booked and got on the next available which was Swissair. Best missed flight ever! Food and drink was superb, it was about three days before Christmas and I was heading back to "dry" Kuwait. You could have poured me off the aircraft!

Worst:
Almost any Garuda flight - had some worrying flights Pekanbaru - Singapore. I believe the competence of some of the flight crew back in the '80s was questionable.
We hates Bagginses!

603DX
Capt
Capt
Posts: 1809
Joined: Thu Aug 27, 2015 5:32 pm
Location: Garden of England
Gender:
Age: 84

Re: Best and worst airline experience

#25 Post by 603DX » Mon Aug 06, 2018 6:34 pm

I have been fortunate with two "Bests", and to date no significant "Worst" airline experience.

Best 1:
Very late December 1965, and booked on British United Gatwick to Guernsey with my wife and our 10 day old daughter, to spend Christmas in the family home in St Peter Port with my wife's parents, and to have our baby baptised in the island. Our flight by Viscount was cancelled because of excessive crosswinds at Guernsey airport, and our happy plans were ruined. On explaining our plight to the BUA airport staff, they were marvellous. They had us immediately transferred to a BAC 1-11 flight to Jersey, which was about to depart, our bags were whisked into the jet, and we were conducted out to the aircraft, which we boarded up the rear fitted stairs to find all passengers already seated and facing backwards! It was one of BUA's troop-carrying aircraft, which at that time the MoD required to have "safer" rear-facing seats. So my daughter's very first flight was made to the wrong island, and backwards! We were put up overnight in a very comfortable St Helier hotel at the airline's expense, and flown the next morning in a Dakota to Guernsey. We had a splendid Christmas, and our daughter was christened on Boxing Day in the parish church (yes, really!). I almost wept, when BUA eventually went bust.

Best 2:
Mid 1980s, travelling by BA in a 747 to Bahrain in business class, (up the spiral staircase into the "hump"), at the expense of our client needing a structural problem sorted at Sitra power station. Being well before 9/11, I asked politely for a cockpit visit, and got it. Got chatting for ages to the 3 flight crew, including various navigation systems, and the friendly captain enthusiastically demonstrated how he had loaded the INS panel with the necessary data prior to departure. Did give me an odd feeling that maybe the large number of paying passengers might not have been too happy that the captain, F/O and engineer were all nattering away to a stranger, rather than paying a bit more attention to the task of flying the big beast. My ignorance, of course, half-expecting at least one of the pilots to be gimlet-eyed and constantly gazing ahead like Biggles ... I then made the mistake of mentioning Decca Navigator systems (one of our structural clients), which set the F/O off on a long reminiscence of when he had used their "moving map" device back in his days in the service. I greatly enjoyed my prolonged chat in the "office", although when I went back to my seat I did wonder if it was possible that all the button-pressing in his INS demo by the captain might have had some unwanted effect on our arrival in the right place! It didn't of course, they were obviously competent professionals. :)

Post Reply