ladyofthelake

And no individual tv's for trans atlantic flights either, just one big screen with lots of heads in the way. In this day and age that's practically criminal.

mustlovedogs

Other - Northwest.

It's definitely the worst I've ever flew with. Tried it for the first time from Singapore to Minneapolis, very early flight, scheduled to depart at 6.00 AM. I woke up at 3, lined up at 4 AM just to see that the flight had been cancelled !!! They transferred me to Singapore Airlines (which I think is the BEST one in the world), but this caused me an almost 9 hours delay in my arriving schedule in Minneapolis !!!

And I still had to fly from LA to Minneapolis using Northwest, very crowded, "helpless" stewardess and junk foods.

A year later I flew again with them from Minneapolis to Las Vegas, again not-so-friendly-neither-helpful crews and this time no food at all !!

Warrington Wolf

I always heard that SABENA was 'Such A BAD Experience Never Again'.

I also remember flying Dan Dare. First time on a package holiday to sunny Spain with my parents in about 1973. The plane was a Comet 4b - the first Comets used to crash you know :scared: Ah, happy days!

Worst airline for me was Qantas from Manchester (UK) to Singapore. We booked a BA flight but got a code share with Qantas - bloody crap. Must have been one of the oldest 747s still flying - seats broken, toilets blocked plus 14 hours of Guy Richie films, crap food, worst flight attendants ever - grr!

shakermaker

I flew BA a lot in the 90's and I really liked them but unfortunately the worst experience I have had was with BA. We were stuck at Heathrow for about two hours before the plane took off, no A/C as power was turned off due to some kind of repair - a geezer or a bloke was obviously trying to fix the plane for the long flight. Temperature outside was 32 C, inside the plane it must have been 60 C. No water was served. The Pakistani looking male BA air hostess never even apologized and was downright rude at passengers. I think the food that was served later was contaminated probably due to the power outage and I was sick the following day. I swore I'd sue them. If the staff had behaved more professionally I wouldn't have complained - these things do happen - but the staff and their behaviour were from the 3rd world.

I think there is a reason why some people pay more for flying Virgin, SAS, or KLM.

mandpete

My parents flew back to Manchester from Newark with Continental on Thursday and they didn't have as much leg room as usual plus they didn't have the individual TV screens.

It is the first time in 10 years of using (family, friends and hubby's colleagues included) Continental flight CO20/21 that it has not had individual screens. Plus they have stopped the 2 flights a day EWR to MAN, I'm not sure whether this is just a seasonal thing or not.

I wish another airline besides US or Continental would fly direct from Philadelphia or Newark to Manchester.

Sarah

Me too! If Virgin started flying out of Manchester I would be ecstatic!

MJC

Tunis Air - from Beirut to Dubai a few months ago. Now you know things aren't going to be good when the cabin crew sit next to you and put their blindfolds on to have a good sleep. Oh but it did, this is a "dry" flight, no alcohol is served on board, BUT, you can take a bottle on with you. So, picture the scene, various (male) passengers in differing levels of intoxication, from the "I'll have a cup of tea" to the "gimmeanotherdrinkyabastard" inebriated souls. 3 or so hours of sheer hell.

On the other hand, the new Beirut Airport is great, and the seafood and champagne bar is top notch!!

Drebin

Delta for me.

Flew with them Denver<->LGW late 2003 and their 'entertainment' was a couple of TV's in the ceilings of the ailes. You'd have thought it was 1993. :-/ Dour attendants as well.

Everything else about the flights were shit too... Well, apart from checkin, which was the standard friendly dollied-up birds IIRC.

neill

American.... we had to taxi TWICE down the runway at Birmingham to Chicago on a fully loaded 767. The captain explained we were 'overweight' as the wind direction had changed, and was going to make another attempt! Plus, i kindly gave up my EXIT seat for one of the worst seats on the plane so some lady to be closer to her kid. On the return trip, one of the flight attendants took pleasure in barging everyone out of the way at the toilet

Contintental....flew on one of their old DC-10s back in '96.... took them 8 hours to FIX the aircraft before leaving Gatwick. Service not bad although we were ID'd and couldn't drink even though i was 20.

BA/Virgin the best, flown BA many times, never had a bad experience.

BigDavyG

I learnt that lesson the hard way - never give up a good seat on a plane unless they offer to upgrade you. If someone wants to move to your seat to sit near their kid let their kid can move instead.
People rarely thank you for it and you end up spending 8 hours with your legs folded under your behind wondering why on earth you swapped in the first place.

Ash UK/US

The worst airline I have ever flown with was US Airways, what a nightmare! We got caught up in the mess last year with the luggage, on our way to Orlando they changed flight times on us then made us wait an hour for the luggage on the carosel coming back they delayed us hours waiting for our connection in Phili then to cap it all when we arrived back in Grand rapids they had left behind 4 of our 5 pieces of luggage telling us some crap about the plan being over loaded (most of the flight had at least one piece missing) and that we would have to wait to have it send back

I have also flown Sabena a few times to Poland via Belgium they were certainly far from a being a good airline. (but that was a few years ago)

Ash

gruffbrown

I was once refused a third beer ($5) on a 5 hour flight with ATA, the stewardess looked down her nose at me and said "This is an airline, not a bar"

Tarkak9

I have flown many times and on many airlines but I have to say the worst was Aeroflot - hands down. To this day I still recall the trip. I didn't know then if I should have laughed, cried or prayed.

Back in 1990 I was in Russia and flew from Odessa to Moscow. After sitting on the runway - literally; with luggage beside me, we were all waiting for the luggage to be loaded and for us to board; at last we climbed the stairs to board the plane. I knew something was not quite right when I looked at my seat and realized it was a mere deck chair bolted to the fuselage. After sitting down I thought it was best to buckle myself in. Well, the seat belt - "belt" being the operative word - was nothing more than a leather belt, cut in two and each piece stuck to the seat. A granny knot and rope would have been more reassuring.

To add insult to injury, the pilot and copilot boarded the plane in jeans and t-shirts with much enthusiasm each proclaiming it will be a flight to remember and not to worry about a thing. They were half right at least.

Drinks and peanuts?!? No thanks. Dare not. The "flight attendants" were your stereotypical Russian women. Enough said.

Being a Westerner, we could afford the luxuries in life to that of the average Russian and on that trip, we were in 1st class. If that was 1st class, I can't imagine how economy was.... visions of people standing and grabbing hand rails like being on the Circle Line.... caged chickens too came to my mind.

Needless to say we survived... some people were offended when some of us kissed the ground when we disembarked. So, if you ever are offered a Aeroflot flight... ditch your hand luggage and carry on a parachute; after all thats what some of the locals do - your survival increases 10 fold.

scrubbedexpat099

Dan Air

It leaked.

They had buckets in the aisles.

MattOR

Royal Air Nepal gets my vote for the world's most craptastic airline. Flew with them from Kathmandu to Delhi a few years ago. Never again. Took all day to buy the ticket in Bombay as they would only accept Nepalese rupees in cash and their office only opened for a few hours each day. Had to present myself in person at their office in Kathmandu to reconfirm the flight or they would automatically cancel the ticket. This took the best part of three days as their computer system kept crashing and a mob of angry passengers would besiege the first hapless customer service rep who looked like they knew what was going on. Had to check in 3 hours prior to departure for the 1 hour flight or would not be allowed on. Going through security and boarding was akin to being in a scrum. Some passengers litteraly shoved others aside to get through the x-ray machines and ran to the aircraft with officials just standing around looking vacant. Other passengers who had qued patiently for two hours were then sent to the back of the line becuse they hadn't filled out the correct departure forms (which were conveniently hidded at the back of the departure lounge with no signs). Before we could board the aircraft we had to manually identify our bags which were spread out all over the tarmac with passengers falling over each other to find their respective pieces of luggage. Aircraft was a 20 year old boeing 757 with some unidentified dried liquid on my seat. Flight left three hours late and upon arrival my bags were covered in rice and lentil soup. Air India comes a close second for abysmal customer service but at least their flights are reasonably comfortable when you eventually get off the ground.

I'd rate the (thankfully) now defunct Manx Airlines as the world's worst value for money airline. A round-trip ticket for the 50 minute flight from Heathrow to the Isle of Man used to cost 280 quid and their planes were always late due to break downs.

On a lighter note the US airlines seem to be improving their international services. Recently flew United from PDX to LHR and back, and American from LGW to Raleigh. Both aircraft were brand new, flights half full, and flight attendants helpful and polite. Wouldn't have said the same about them a few years ago.