celine_uk

A question I'm sure many of us have asked, Zoom airlines? Are they any good? I'm kinda tall 6.1ft so leg room is important to me, are they similar to Air transat? If they are hmmm I don’t think I'll be flying with them!

dbd33

They are similar in that you can upgrade to Club, or whatever, and have lots of leg room while saving against the scheduled fare.

iaink

I think it depends not on the airline as much as the plane/ configuration you get. Transat uses airbus3xxs now, Zoom has Boeing767s.

sysclp

When we flew Transat it was a 757 and horribly cramped which lead me to swear never to fly them again. We were going to France and that was at the max distance limit for a 757 and coming back we had to stop to refuel because of headwinds. Made a 6 hour flight into a 9 hour flight and total misery.

iaink

I think the 757s are retired now. Lets face it, Long hail flights with cheap carriers (whether charter or Scheduled carriers) are never going to be much fun for tall people in steerage class. As long as its a newish plane I think they are all much the same as each other, so I go with the cheapest option.

sysclp

I am only 5'3" and my husband is 5'6" and we both were miserable. It was only about $100 each cheaper and I now know that price would be well worth the extra room.

Rich_007

Hi, we flew Sept Manc-Vanc. It worked for us regarding times and date of flight versus cost. We had asked around and knew there was a slight service risk involved.

Upgraded to the longer legroom seats. Space was fine and worth the small extra, but seats were cheap leathery stuff and sweaty, tended to fall off front of them. Service and food was fine no probs. Flight staff were fine.

The only hassle we had was a 3.5 hr delay. No compo as this was a charter. Also not covered by our insurance due to less than 8 hour delay. Missed connector flight to Kelowna from Vancouver and had to pay overnight hotel costs. Loads of hassle in Manc from snotty CS bod who had clearly been well trained for her role by watching 'Airline' repeatedly ad naseum. We had 50kg excess baggage and were asked to pay half of that which was OK as we'd budgeted for it.

Basically given the choice of a bagfull of spare cash I'd use Zoom again, no real complaints, ref the delay yeah sh1t happens, it could've been handled better by Zoom but WTH. If the difference in price between Zoom and another airline is minimal go elsewhere but if it's a few hundred quid I'd Zoom it with a slight [known] risk factor.

Rich.

yonk

Travelled economy GLA - Calgary and it was fine, much better than expected. Flew Transat a few years ago, not as good.

www.airlinequality.com

iaink

Good link, I was looking for seat spacing info earlier and couldnt find it, but there it is. Zoom 31" in economy, 36" upgrade.

Im 5'11" and just survive in economy, at 6'1" I'd probably pay for the upgrade.

Thos Cook by the way is only 29"!!!

Biiiiink

35" in standard cabin on most of their Toronto routes though.

yonk

Though I am really miffed as they are re-routing via Manchester on their Glasgow - Cal/Van flights from next summer rather than direct.

Manc

Not quite iain.
Boeing has stopped making them, but they're still about.
continental flies a lot of them to the UK, and BMI flies Washington to Manchester with the 757.

it's like a sardine tin.

iaink

Really! Thats sounds remarkable generous, especially as there prices are usually not too bad.

Biiiiink

It is! You have to check when you book via Canadian Affair that you've chosen a Thomas Cook flight and not a MyTravel one, and that your TC flight has the "extra seat pitch" logo. Same price as their other cheapies, excellent value.

Not only recommended for tall people but also great for avoiding toddlers spending 7hrs kicking the back of the seat in front of them...their legs can't reach far enough

iaink

Transats ditched them though...hopefully not literally, but after running out of fuel and gliding 60 miles to the Azores that time who knows eh