On Tue, 23 Aug 2005 16:00:55 GMT, "Frank F. Matthews"
<[email protected]> wrote:

    > Vienna was worse than Cairo.

I intend flying via Cairo next year. Is there something I
should know?

Cheers, Alan, Australia

In soc.culture.polish DK <[email protected]> wrote:
    : LOT tickets for our recent Chicago-Vienna trip were hundred-and-some $$
    : less than comparable United and Lufthansa. After some deliberations,
    : we decided to give this post-Communist company a benefit of doubt.
    : BIG MISTAKE.

    : - 75 min long line to just check in in O'Hare.

- waited in longer, non_LOT, check-in lines.

    : - 1 hour long security check line in Warsaw. Rude and very invasive
    : search, too.

- that's security people, not the airline.

    : - Even though tickets were purchased 3 months in advance, seating
    : assigned made sure members of our family seat as far from
    : each other as possible (my mistake for not checking it before we
    : came to the airport)

- the same happened to me recently on Air Canada flight.

    : - Weather-unrelated delays on both trans-Atlantic flights (1 and 2.5
    : hours; "some kind of engine trouble" (!)).

- actually, I'd prefer to be late than dead

    : - The luggage was not transferred at all on trip forward and
    : one suitcase was transferred to a wrong flight on trip back.

happened to me on "respectable" airlines too

    : - Without exception, stewardesses keep talking to every passenger
    : in Polish - even after learning that the passenger does not speak
    : Polish.

see above (substitute appriopriate language)

    : - Food is given in liliputian amounts and has no taste.

Boo hoo. That's 'airline food'. If on other lines you
dine in style, with copious amounts of food of an unparalled
taste - you have my envy.

    : - The other flight services are unexistent. Pressing stewardess call
    : button has no effect whatsoever.

    : In brief, LOT Airlines seems to be run by a buch of incompetent
    : morons. Stay away from it if you can.
    : DK

Good luck in finding cheap and competent morons next time.

Piotr Trela

Only that it is a crowded confused mess with six levels of security
between arrival and your plane and announcements only in Arabic. You
will survive but you will wonder during the process.

It is strange crowded and confusing. If folks around weren't basically
friendly you would never find your way out. Fortunately they are friendly.

Alan S wrote:

    > On Tue, 23 Aug 2005 16:00:55 GMT, "Frank F. Matthews"
    > <[email protected]> wrote:
    >
    >
    >>Vienna was worse than Cairo.
    >
    >
    > I intend flying via Cairo next year. Is there something I
    > should know?
    >
    > Cheers, Alan, Australia

In article <XVxOe.9124$137.6739@trnddc08>, [email protected] says...
    > x-no-archive: yes
    >
    > Miguel Cruz wrote:
    > > Casey <[email protected]> wrote:
    > >
    > >>I traveled on Lufthansa and LOT in May, and my LOT flight
    > >>was much more pleasant than my Lufthansa flight.
    > >
    > >
    > > Feeding your own intestines into a wood chopper is more pleasant than a
    > > Lufthansa flight.
    > >
    >
    > Exactly, paranoic Uebermenschen.

I've not found LH to be all that bad. They've not been overtly rude --
although it does seem they're deliberately trying to confirm the
stereotypes of Teutonic rigidity. I'm conversant enough in German to
get the impression they treat their German passengers with equal
firmness, not just non-Germans.

On Wed, 24 Aug 2005 01:26:12 GMT, "Frank F. Matthews"
<[email protected]> wrote:

    >Only that it is a crowded confused mess with six levels of security
    >between arrival and your plane and announcements only in Arabic. You
    >will survive but you will wonder during the process.
    >It is strange crowded and confusing. If folks around weren't basically
    >friendly you would never find your way out. Fortunately they are friendly.

Thanks:-)

Cheers, Alan, Australia

"nichtgut" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > [email protected] (Miguel Cruz) wrote:
    > An airline that can't come up with a corporate identity, paints its
    > entire fleet white and thinks that is being bold and innovative, its
    > airplane interiors consist of a sea of grey seats, its flight
    > attendants in dark navy suits.

Nice to see you're concentrating on the important aspects of airlines. KM
--
(-:alohacyberian:-) At my website there are 3000 live cameras or
visit NASA, play games, read jokes, send greeting cards & connect
to CNN news, NBA, the White House, Academy Awards or learn all
about Hawaii, Israel and more: http://keith.martin.home.att.net/

"nichtgut" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > [email protected] (Miguel Cruz) wrote:
    > >Casey <[email protected]> wrote:
    > >> I traveled on Lufthansa and LOT in May, and my LOT flight
    > >> was much more pleasant than my Lufthansa flight.
    > >
    > >Feeding your own intestines into a wood chopper is more pleasant than a
    > >Lufthansa flight.
    > >
    > >miguel
    > Well, what do you expect from the Luftwaffe.
    > An airline that can't come up with a corporate identity, paints its
    > entire fleet white and thinks that is being bold and innovative, its
    > airplane interiors consist of a sea of grey seats, its flight
    > attendants in dark navy suits.
    > Just be glad their uniforms are no longer brown shirts and the
    > inflight entertainment no longer consists of readings from Mein Kampf
    > over the loudspeakers.
    > Although I hear they're thinking of bringing back their award-winning
    > inflight magazine Blitzkrieg.


Oh God, you two, you're so FUNNY!

I mean, like WOW, is that ever good stuff.

Do you both write for humour magazines.

Really, I mean it.

"Frank F. Matthews" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected].. .
    > Jeff Hacker wrote:
    >> [snip]
    >>>Do you think you can get the same quality service on American Airlines
    >>>as the Gringo next to you, if you don't speak any English, only Spanish?
    >>>No way Jose! There is always going to be a slight difference here.
    >>>Other than that, I am sorry for your crummy experience, and hope
    >>>LOT improves in the future. They have been making a lot of progress
    >>>but apparently need to do LOTs more :))
    >>>MN
    >> Actually, that's a bad example. AA has enough Spanish speaking flight
    >> attendants that their flights to Spanish speaking countries have adequate
    >> Spanish speakers among their flight attendants. It may be different on
    >> other routes (I've flown Continental to Amsterdam and they didn't have
    >> any Dutch speakers), but as for the major destinations in Europe and
    >> Asia, the American carriers do carry interpreters and multilingual FA's.
    >> Jeff
    > The Amsterdam example is an interesting one. An airline can either
    > develop a group of staff dedicated to an individual route or can try to
    > maintain the flexibility of having staff switch between their many routes.
    > It would be interesting to know what the work background for the staff on
    > the Amsterdam flight was. Have they spent several years on that flight
    > flying it exclusively? Are they likely to switch regularly to flights to
    > Paris or Madrid?

"International" crew based in Newark. Most flew international regularly,
and alternated between AMS and FRA.
    >>>--
    >>>Equitable Communications Promise: Milton Noyes does
    >>>not discriminate against newsgroup respondents on the
    >>>basis of age, sex, race, color, national origin, ancestry,
    >>>creed, pregnancy, religion, marital or parental status,
    >>>sexual orientation, physical, mental, emotional, or learning
    >>>disability or handicap.
    >>

"mrtravel" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:YcMOe.5381$A%[email protected] m...
    > Jeff Hacker wrote:
    >>>Ooopsss, there was an airline coming quiet close to being
    >>>a truly international; PanAM. Although Anlo, it felt really
    >>>international at least to Europeans, Eastern-Europeans,
    >>>Latin Americans, etc. I imagine Asians would probably have
    >>>some reservations about this statement. Any one Oriental
    >>>care to comment?
    >>>MN
    >> I'm not Asian, but PanAm had extensive Asian routes and a crew base in
    >> Tokyo. I can remember flying between Hawaii and hte U.S. mainland on one
    >> of their 707's with the safety announcements made in 7 languages.
    > And yet, the airline still died.

There are a lot of reasons for that. Many of them within the company's
control, but a large number were political and were not.

"nobody" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

    > You think this is odd ? Have you tried Air Canada at Dorval ? Last
    > summer, 3 agents to check in 3 widebodies leaving less than an hour
    > apart. 120 minutes wait for check-in, and they had to hold the flight
    > because there were still too many who hadn't check-in yet. The've since
    > reduced the number of check-in position in total, to make way for
    > self-check in machines. Not sure how many check in positiosn are opened
    > for intl departures this summer.

Last time I flew was on a trans-Atlantic AC out of YUL, I checked in and
cleared security in 20 minutes. This was in mid-May for a flight to LHR.

They did a wonderful job of botching my YUL-SNA trip this past weekend, mind
you, but that's another story...

Richard

In article <[email protected]>, nichtgut
<[email protected]> wrote:

    > [email protected] (Miguel Cruz) wrote:
    >
    > >Casey <[email protected]> wrote:
    > >> I traveled on Lufthansa and LOT in May, and my LOT flight
    > >> was much more pleasant than my Lufthansa flight.
    > >
    > >Feeding your own intestines into a wood chopper is more pleasant than a
    > >Lufthansa flight.
    > >
    > >miguel
    >
    > Well, what do you expect from the Luftwaffe.

Well, I don't know about LOT is, but I've flown via Lufthansa several
times, and I prefer the flights they run themselves to United's. Last
time I flew SAS, though, and liked it much better.

--
Mary Loomer Oliver (aka Erilar)

You can't reason with someone whose first line of argument
is that reason doesn't count. Isaac Asimov

Erilar's Cave Annex: http://www.airstreamcomm.net/~erilarlo

For your information, luggage handling is done by airport!!! NOT by the
airlines.
Airline pays airport for this service.
AK

"DK" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > In article <[email protected] .com>,
    > [email protected] wrote:
    >>DK wrote:
    >>> LOT tickets for our recent Chicago-Vienna trip were hundred-and-some $$
    >>> less than comparable United and Lufthansa. After some deliberations,
    >>> we decided to give this post-Communist company a benefit of doubt.
    >>> BIG MISTAKE.
    >>> - 75 min long line to just check in in O'Hare.
    >>> - 1 hour long security check line in Warsaw. Rude and very invasive
    >>> search, too.
    >>> - Even though tickets were purchased 3 months in advance, seating
    >>> assigned made sure members of our family seat as far from
    >>> each other as possible (my mistake for not checking it before we
    >>> came to the airport)
    >>> - Weather-unrelated delays on both trans-Atlantic flights (1 and 2.5
    >>> hours; "some kind of engine trouble" (!)).
    >>> - The luggage was not transferred at all on trip forward and
    >>> one suitcase was transferred to a wrong flight on trip back.
    >>> - Without exception, stewardesses keep talking to every passenger
    >>> in Polish - even after learning that the passenger does not speak
    >>> Polish.
    >>> - Food is given in liliputian amounts and has no taste.
    >>> - The other flight services are unexistent. Pressing stewardess call
    >>> button has no effect whatsoever.
    >>> In brief, LOT Airlines seems to be run by a buch of incompetent
    >>> morons. Stay away from it if you can.
    >>have you tried LOT customer service ?
    > Yes - to deal with the baggage problems, obviously. The rest is
    > apparently considered to be normal by them (or good enough, or not
    > worse than others or something that's beyond their control). Whatever
    > it is, I am not flying LOT again even if they pay me!
    > DK
    >

On Fri, 26 Aug 2005 07:27:43 -0400, "AK" <[email protected]> wrote:

    >For your information, luggage handling is done by airport!!! NOT by the
    >airlines.
    >Airline pays airport for this service.

and it's unfair that KLM get singled out for the prize for losing the
most luggage every year, when it should be Schiphol airport.

Some luggage still comes out on the wrong belts at Schiphol.
My son arrived at Schiphol at last week on a flight from Manchester,
whilst most of the other passengers luggage was on the right belt,
his luggage was on the belt for a flight arriving from Dusseldorf.
Luckily he thought to check.
--
Martin

    > and it's unfair that KLM get singled out for the prize for losing the
    > most luggage every year, when it should be Schiphol airport.

Does a website exist showing the top ten airports for losing luggage?

Casey

On Fri, 26 Aug 2005 13:58:57 GMT, "Casey"
<[email protected]> wrote:

    >> and it's unfair that KLM get singled out for the prize for losing the
    >> most luggage every year, when it should be Schiphol airport.
    >Does a website exist showing the top ten airports for losing luggage?

Not that I know of, but every year since Schiphol got a new computer
controlled luggage system KLM has made the news for losing more
luggage than anywhere else.

Schiphol is number 6 in the top ten best airports here
http://www.lostluggagetales.com/reso...t-airports.asp
Despite the name of the web site, lost luggage doesn't appear to be a
criteria for rating airports.
--
Martin