best and worst airlines to flight with?
 

hi guys, im booking my flight to melbourne today and before i book it i was just wondering if anyone knows the better airlines to flight with and also which ones to avoid.

thanks

Re: best and worst airlines to flight with?
 

I think that it's a matter of value for money... I've heard that one of the best is Emirates and the worst one Air China.
We found a great deal through IOM for two tickets to Sydney with BA which I've heard is pretty decent too.

Re: best and worst airlines to flight with?
 

Singapore, Emirates, Thai (not in any particular order) are advertising deals from time to time, see what you can get from either of these three. I have also heard that Qatar airlines (sp?) are quite good, but I have not used them personally.

Re: best and worst airlines to flight with?
 

I flew with Etihad last year, I was really impressed with the whole experience. Would fly with them again no worries :thumbup:

Re: best and worst airlines to flight with?
 

I've flown to Oz with quite a few now and my favourite was Cathay Pacific.

BA-Ok but not the best service
Qantas- Fine, nothing special but zero leg room on some aisle seats due to entertainment box.
Thai- Very poor, old 747 with no inflight entertainment on UK to Bangkok leg
Chinese Airlines(not air china)- Service Ok, 13 hour tapei to london though due to them not being allowed to fly over China
Cathay Pacific-Great as the person in front cant recline, food and service good.

Re: best and worst airlines to flight with?
 

Do not go with Brunei airlines. Spilled a hot drink over my wife and never even apologised !! Also, no alcohol served.

My advice in booking flight is to negotiate with the price, don't just take the first price and book. When you get a quote from an agent, play the number off to other agents, and ask them to try and beat it.

Re: best and worst airlines to flight with?
 

We usually flight with BA and it is pretty good. Take the economy plus, is a little bit better than economy but not crazy expensive.
AA sucks and Delta will loose for sure your luggages ...
KLM is pretty good but still prefer BA.
US Airlines are cheap and crap ...
My two cents from US

Re: best and worst airlines to flight with?
 

Emirates because of the 30kg allowance in economy and consistently good aircraft product.
Singapore airlines for consistent quality of service.

Avoid
Qantas, brunei, Thai in economy from London and anything Chinese.

Re: best and worst airlines to flight with?
 

All depends on your priorities and how fussy you are really. You'll get some emotional outbursts against companies from some people due to one bad experience.

I've only gone Virgin, Qantas and Emairates and they were all fine. But as long as I've got a backseat TV and plenty of food and booze I'm easy. I'm one of the lucky ones who can sleep anywhere :)

Re: best and worst airlines to flight with?
 

well ive booked with singapore airlines due to them being the cheapest that people recommended. im flyin in november so i will update when ive landed and let you all know what i thought. maybe this will help someone else.

look out australia here i come!

Re: best and worst airlines to flight with?
 

We came over on Singapore, they were pretty good. We had a 18 hour wait there so booked 12 hours in the airport hotel. Really comfy bed :D

Re: best and worst airlines to flight with?
 

We had great service with Royal Brunei. If they weren't stopping their Brisbane flights I'd happily use them again.

Re: best and worst airlines to flight with?
 

Singapore, flown with them twice, excellent with the kids will see to them even when you are asleep.The crew surprised the kids with a birthday cake each as both had their birthdays whilst inflight.Superb!Flew in 380 nice and smooth!

Re: best and worst airlines to flight with?
 

That's due to the weather....not the plane.

I have had a very rough flight in a 380.

I have also had some of my worst flying experiences with Singapore

Re: best and worst airlines to flight with?
 

Qatar and Emirates get my vote - both had good leg room and weren't full so we could stretch out and enjoy the surprisingly decent entertainment systems.

We always aim for the less obvious ones in the hope people with kids don't use them as a flight without screaming kids is worth immeasurable amounts of money. Looking forward to Air Pakistan, Aeroflot Afghanistan etc starting up flights between here and the UK :thumbup:

Re: best and worst airlines to flight with?
 

Best..Singapore by a country mile.
Worst...Aeroflot by 2 or 3 country miles.
I have flown with maybe a dozen different airlines but they were the standouts. Virgin Atlantic were also fantastic.

Re: best and worst airlines to flight with?
 

Not in Business class:p

Re: best and worst airlines to flight with?
 

:confused:

Doesn't turbulence affect business class then:rolleyes:

Re: best and worst airlines to flight with?
 

Avoid Air China. Flew Sydney-Beijing -London with them this year. Never again.

Re: best and worst airlines to flight with?
 

My vote for Singapore for consistent service and all round flying enjoyment even in economy.

Flew Qantas last year only from MEL to SIN and it wasn't great, no foot rests which is not good for DVT when you are only 5ft, forgot my main course, drinks service was a bottle of water and just general "thank goodness I'm not going all the way to London"!

Emirates, I've not flown with them in a while but used to find service up and down depending on the crew and they were always very slow to serve food, we were almost at Dubai one night before I got my dinner!

Flown with Cathay and they were fine. Malaysia also ok but you can see where they cut corners compared to SIA but they have biggest seat pitch.

Don't fly BA as they don't come to MEL but didn't have great service on flight to Singapore but would prefer them in an emergency! They seem to handle them well!

Avoid Aeroflop and Korean although their safety record has improved.

I guess airline also depens on if you want a stopover to break up the journey.

KK

Re: best and worst airlines to flight with?
 

Best Singapore Airlines - good consistent service, good food, good entertainment, good with kids, good airport hub.

Worst I have been with on the Australia - UK route is KLM. We flew in a Boeing 747 that I don't think had been touched since 1974. No TV in the back of your seat, just a big TV set at the front and one half way back. They put a movie on every now and again, just the one movie at a time of course. Although it didn't matter for me as my headset jack point didn't work anyway.

Food was awful and the service very poor That was a VERY long flight.

Re: best and worst airlines to flight with?
 

I like Singapore and Emirates, but last week I flew with Thai from Brisbane to BKK in economy and I was surprised - I thought it was even better than Singapore:thumbup:

Re: best and worst airlines to flight with?
 

Ah - Yes. Brisbane to BKK has a decent plane. However, BKK to London has some of the roughest 747's still on the route. No seat back TV in economy would make for a very long flight me thinks.

Re: best and worst airlines to flight with?
 

Yeah, it was a very nice plan. I flew with Turkish from Bangkok and they brilliant

Re: best and worst airlines to flight with?
 

Air New Zealand the best surprise in 50+ years of flying. Makes quaintass look ordinary

Re: best and worst airlines to flight with?
 

I've always stayed away from Cathay specifically because they have the 'no recline' seats. I'm damned if I'm sitting on a plane for 12 hours without being able to lean back a bit! - Having said that I had heard rumours that Cathay had moved away from those seats following to many customer complaints? (Can anyone verify?)

For me BA/QA have always been the best to fly with:
- decent timetables, minimal transits,
- BA from HK used T5 which is sublime compared to any other Heathrow terminal (although I think they've moved HK flights back to T4 now?)..
- Excellent 'emergency fallback proceedures' (Family were well looked after when their SYD-LHR flight was delayed for a week due to volcano in Easter 2010)

- and of course the ability to use the same FF points accrued rapidly here in Australia via work travel, hire cars, hotels, credit card spending etc etc etc... (I know other airlines have FF schemes - but I've not found anyone that enables ME to accrue flights quicker)....
- Add to that the wife now being eligable for QF family discounted flights and its a no brainer for us...

4pax BNE-LHR return at xmas for about $1200 (perhaps a little more - I dont remember how much I paid?).... and for that money I dont really care if the cabin crew arent as stunningly beautiful or servile as the Singaporeans!

Re: best and worst airlines to flight with?
 

The seats still recline, but when they do recline they don't move the back so it doesn't infringe on the person behind. The back of the seat is fixed and the seat kind of "opens out" into your own space. Haven't flown on them since the refit but apparently they are quite comfortable.

Have flown on Cathay, Singapore and Malaysian. Singapore the best by a mile (although I have heard Emirates are much better). Cathay weren't too bad, but IFE broke down 1 hour out of HKG and we had a 12 hour flight with no entertainment. Malaysian were good, but IFE nowhere near SQ levels.

Apparently QF are OK on the A380s, but the 747s are a bit rattly and the IFE isn't that good (PTVs are very small). The only problem with EK is that the connection is in DXB, so you have a 7 hour flight followed by a 12-13hr flight. SQ/CX/MH are both more of a 50/50 split.

Check out http://airliners.net/discussions/trip_reports if you want to read trip reports from the airlines, some very good information/photos on there.

Re: best and worst airlines to flight with?
 

We will have to fly with our now 2 year old, so she will be 3 by the time we fly and such a long flight I must say I am a little worried about that :) for me and other passengers.... she's (so far ;)) been a very good flyer, just have to hope it stays that way

Re: best and worst airlines to flight with?
 

About the seats.....
http://www.airlinequality.com/Product/Yseat-CX.htm

Re: best and worst airlines to flight with?
 

No they are not.....the splits are about the same.

From Brisbane it is about 7 hours to Singapore/KL but then 13 hours or so to UK.

Re: best and worst airlines to flight with?
 

You are correct, I was thinking of when we flew into AKL, was about 11-12 hours from SIN and HKG then. We flew over BNE about half way through.

Re: best and worst airlines to flight with?
 

Which mean you recline into your own legroom and therefore cannot recline at all if you're a fully grown European male with legs.

From everything I've read these seats are complete duds and to be avoided at all costs!