scilly

My English rellies insisted on using Air Transat whenever they visited ............. despite the fact that literally every flight was bad.

"Bad" ranged from hours late in leaving England or here, terrible food, broken seats on both flights, rude cabin crew, lost luggage, etc.

You name it, it happened to them.

Yet, they kept saying "but it is so much cheaper than any other company"

PAH ............ never could understand that mentality!

Stinkypup

We just flew with them and survived....I think anyone can have a drink problem, it doesn't discriminate whether your are Cathay Pacific or Easy Jet.... You may be safer with Emirates or Etihad in this regard but even that is not guaranteed.

We fly back tomorrow on Icelandair, likely Captain Magnusson or Peterson or Sigfriedson etc doing the honours who hopefully won't be pickled like a herring

Oink

I'm sure they're fine but Air Transat do hire pilots that the major airlines prorbaly wouldn't and they do pay less. You get what you pay for.

BristolUK

Or what you can afford to pay for...or if you can afford more, it's just a flight and as long as you arrive safely you can spend the difference on something else.

macadian

Perhaps it should be like the oil industry? When you sign the contract, you agree to subject yourself to any random test for drink/drugs....if such checks were to be made relatively frequent, less flight crews would take the chance...

scilly

The niece who had the broken seat coming from England to here took several days to get close to being able to walk normally, and she was only about 40 at the time.

She reported the seat, and was assured that it would have been removed and repaired, and that she would not have it on the return trip.

Guess what .............. she was given the exact same seat number and row on the return trip, told the person on check-in and was assured once again that it was NOT the same seat and if it was, it had been repaired.

Nope ........... it was the exact same seat, still broken 4 weeks after her trip out.

She had to pay for several visits to physios after the return trip.

So not only are they skimping on paying their pilots, they are skimping on the structure of the plane, at least on the internal structure.

I'd rather pay more and have a comfortable seat.

beckiwoo

Yep but for a 10 hour flight that I'm going to sleep through, why should I pay more.


+1

Stinkypup

Me too.

BristolUK

Do you get this service in Business Class?

MarkG

Much easier to sleep in a Business Class pod than a cattle-class seat. Last time I flew in a pod, I closed my eyes, rolled over, and wondered why it was light outside. Then realized I'd slept through most of the flight.

Not a big deal if I'm going back to the UK to visit relatives and getting on a coach at Heathrow, but if I'm driving for a couple of hours at the other end of the flight on a business trip, I don't want to fall asleep on the motorway.

Jerseygirl

count me in.

beckiwoo

Not all of us can afford to upgrade to business class.

I've taken so many flights in economy and driven home at the other end

jandro

Some years ago an Air Transat flight lost power over the Atlantic and the pilots glided the plane to a runway in the Azores. In that case it was excellent piloting. It set a record for gliding a passenger jet.

jerry brewer

Hi
Quite a few years back i talked with a retired pilot, who said after a 'rough night' the system was to take a few burst of the aircrafts oxygen, and instantly sober.
mind you planes had props then
cheers
jerry

MarkG

Life was simpler in those days.

I spoke to a retired aircrew guy some years ago who was telling me about an airport where his job during landings in the 40s or 50s was to sit on the toilet at the back of the plane and warn the pilot if the tail was getting too close to the mountain at the end of the runway as they descended.