DXBtoDOH

Anyone flown Pegasus? They have the cheapest flights out of Doha to the sanctity that is Europe. Looking to go to Germany for a quickie weekend in April and in exchange for a short (under two hours) layover in Turkey the ticket prices are less than half of Qatar nonstop for an overall travel journey time that is only three hours longer (six hours on Qatar, nine on Pegasus including the layover).

scrubbedexpat142

Turkish LCC, bit of a nasty 2 weeks ago (jury still out, lucky not to have been a catastrophe) otherwise clean record (I believe). I have no customer experience though.

Brains1983

I used them to come back from Europe a couple of years. cheap & cheerful. pay for anything and everything over the seat your backside is on.

There isn't much of a price difference between them and the direct options out of the UAE now though.

DXBtoDOH

Lucky you. Doha is a captive market far more so than the UAE. Most of the European carriers have pulled out (or code share with Qatar, which effectively gives Qatar the monopoly). There's only a handful other airlines that fly to Qatar these days. A few crap Indian airlines, Pegasus and Turkish.

And, of course, ever since the embargo began and Emirates/Etihad withdrew, flight fares have gone up. A lot

weasel decentral

Of the crap Indian airlines, Jet airways are pretty good not sure if they operate in Qatar. Indigo and Spicejet are not good.

scrubbedexpat141

A mate has, said they were OK but also said he regretted the dicking around and wish he'd just flown direct.

DXBtoDOH

Normally I'd just pay extra for Qatar nonstop but for the dates in question Pegasus actually has a better schedule. It's a Friday-Monday weekend and Qatar wouldn't arrive till late Friday evening (effectively losing that day), whereas Pegasus would leave early Friday AM and arrive before noon. Nor can I fly on Thursday as Qatar's Thursday flight leaves around 7 AM and I need to work that day.

I've asked around and it seems half the people say Pegasus is ok, you get what you pay for but their flights were timely and they had no issues, and the other half say never again.

jam25mack

Sounds like a gamble! It's generally the same with a lot of the budget or lower class airlines. They either work fine or they don't. It's just pure luck which one you get.

scrubbedexpat141

Fair enough, might be worth a gamble then.

Don't forget, reviews are based on how anything meets the expectations. If someone expects shit and gets shit or average they'll say they're good. If they expect Emirates business class and get Ryanair they'll whine like me with man flu, which is a lot and isn't fair based on realistic expectations.

Miss Ann Thrope

Emirates business class is very meh tbh. Business lounges in Dubai are holy hell, especially B and C concourse (though the away EK lounges are great and F lounge in Dubai is a delight if you can get in). On board, they can't figure out how to get the food and wine to you at the same time on the stupid 380 service roster for example and they serve meals at times to suit the crew not the passengers: dinner after take off to Seoul at 04:30 FFS? Their seats, aircraft by aircraft, are worse than most of the competition (7 across in J on 777, shoulder squeeze in the 380). EK 777 business seat is hardly any better than BA Premium Economy. Food and crew on Emirates are now very hit and miss. Car service is good and they provide it on all business fares (unlike, say, Virgin who don't give it on the business "saver" fares) but they don't offer it in many destinations where it would be really useful (Jakarta, Nairobi, Athens come to mind...).

scrubbedexpat141

I hope I can afford to look down on EK Business class lounges as hell one day. My point wasn't about showing off travel credentials but more that if you expect a higher level of service than is fair for what you're using, you're going to review it as shit...even if it was good for the level it is at.

Anyway. BA deserve their criticism, Dad's just booked business class to Dubai and had to pay £60 per person per flight to book seats together. Mental.

DXBtoDOH

In Business? Oy vey.

scrubbedexpat141

I was surprised too. I know he got a good deal but it was still thousands for two tickets. Add another £240 just to sit next to each other

Miss Ann Thrope

Well let me flip that: I've experienced it too with BA but recognise there is a reason.

BF and I reclaimed some ancient avios to fly business to Toronto a couple of years ago and it was 75 quid per seat per sector to pre-assign seats. I had the same reaction: in business? We didn't pay but automatically got assigned seats together anyway at each check-in, though in that weird BA face-to-face configuration rather than the hideaway "sweetheart seats" in the middle that couples would generally select. I believe that BA will seat people on the same booking together on automatically assigned seating unlike Ryanair who will deliberately seat them apart in order to force them to pay for the assigned seats.

The reason I thought it was not a bad thing was because higher tier members of BA's FF programme got to choose for free: gold at time of booking, silver later etc. Now it's a while since I had status on BA, but I appreciated the point of favouring frequent flyers. At the time EK did not charge for assigning seating and as a Platinum Emirates flyer I was often stuck with a crappy seat as all the good ones had been taken by early bookers!

More recently I got done by the same policy. I found a good one way fare DXB-LHR on BA's premium economy. That has happened before and I've had no issue: my Exec Club profile says aisle seat and that's what I always get. This time their system didn't allow me to check in online 24 hours before on the app or the website. I got on the phone and they told me (eventually) that "airport staff had reserved seat assignment". I thought that odd and annoying and sure enough at airport check in they were about to assign me a middle seat. I pulled my best outraged important person stint: more than 25 years an Exec Club member, half of that gold etc etc. And it worked. The lovely filippina check-in agent called somebody and presto I had an aisle seat.

But the moral is that the "cheap" fare is cheap because they have reserved some benefit - if you want the full experience shell out for the extra charges...