Your choice of airline

Badger_Lady

I'm not allowed to fly business class. Even for business

Nobjocki

fifeken wrote: »

It did to the rest of us (IMO) until you expanded on it in the following posts.

Yup,I'm with you on that.

Nobjocki

richardw wrote: »

Some may say Ryanair copied the low-cost no frills business model from Southwest Airlines in the United States and has taken it a bit further which has become the Ultra Low Cost airline model, with high charges for hold baggage and a smaller hand luggage allowance than the IATA standard.
Spirit Airlines in the USA has taken this further with large hand luggage charges and only a free allowance for a hand luggage bag that can go under the seat in front of you.

i have travelled on Air Asia short haul in the far east, a low cost airline with allocated seating, seems ryanair is aware of this and is doing its own trials http://www.ryanair.com/en/news/ryanair-extends-its-reserved-seating-service-on-11-routes-to-from-milan-bergamo

Where Ryanair stole a march on its rivals was the sale of ancillary products ( the trolley,priority boarding etc ) which accounts for nearly a quarter of its profits.

Almost every single low-cost airline has followed since.

They also pioneered using unknown regional airports and driving superb deals with them on landing fees, etc.

They also drastically reduced the amount of time aircraft spent on the apron and not in the air earning money by their superfast but quite legal tunaround.

The end result is cheap fares for travellers and vast cash reserves for Ryanair and its shareholders.

As a CEO Michael O'Leary has done his job in spades and hundreds of millions of air passengers have benefited as a result.

Doshwaster

richardw wrote: »

i have travelled on Air Asia short haul in the far east, a low cost airline with allocated seating, seems ryanair is aware of this and is doing its own trials http://www.ryanair.com/en/news/ryanair-extends-its-reserved-seating-service-on-11-routes-to-from-milan-bergamo

Air Asia are indeed a fantastic airline (with some of the best looking cabin crew in the world) but they do have the advantage over Ryanair of operating in a part of the world with relatively low staffing costs. They are a fantastic way of exploring SE Asia as most of the routes are 1-2 hours so you don't mind a lack of frills, especially as they are a dry airline on regional services. I'm not sure I'd want to try their long haul service to KUL though (which is moving from STN to LGW next month). For anything over 3-4 hours, I do like my comforts and free G&T.

malkie76

Badger_Lady wrote: »

I'm not allowed to fly business class. Even for business

The majority of passengers on every single plane are flying in economy (ignoring some of the business-only planes offered by certain airlines). So you are in good company

Worth remembering that class of travel is something that should be in your employment contract, so there is nothing stopping you negotiating for that upon appraisal, promotion, or when changing jobs.

malkie76

Doshwaster wrote: »

Air Asia are indeed a fantastic airline (with some of the best looking cabin crew in the world) but they do have the advantage over Ryanair of operating in a part of the world with relatively low staffing costs. They are a fantastic way of exploring SE Asia as most of the routes are 1-2 hours so you don't mind a lack of frills, especially as they are a dry airline on regional services. I'm not sure I'd want to try their long haul service to KUL though (which is moving from STN to LGW next month). For anything over 3-4 hours, I do like my comforts and free G&T.

I'm genuinely considering giving AirAsiaX a try as a long haul option to Australia when paying out of my own pocket. AirAsiaX is essentially an economy soft product with a business hard product. I'm interested to see exactly how well the costs prices up against proper business products.

benjus

I would say I normally go on price, but I'm prepared to pay a bit extra if I think the more expensive airline will give better service. I have used Ryanair and Easyjet a lot and am generally happy with their service (although Easyjet could improve their punctuality). My best experience has to be with Singapore airlines, while the worst recent experience was with Kuwait flying to New York, where the plane got stuck in the snow problems last winter and we ended up sitting for 7 hours on the taxiways before we were allowed off. Not the airline's fault, but the way they handled it left a lot to be desired - they didn't show a lot of respect for their passengers.

Bob_the_Saver

Doshwaster wrote: »

Air Asia are indeed a fantastic airline (with some of the best looking cabin crew in the world) but they do have the advantage over Ryanair of operating in a part of the world with relatively low staffing costs. They are a fantastic way of exploring SE Asia as most of the routes are 1-2 hours so you don't mind a lack of frills, especially as they are a dry airline on regional services. I'm not sure I'd want to try their long haul service to KUL though (which is moving from STN to LGW next month). For anything over 3-4 hours, I do like my comforts and free G&T.

Done the long hauls, not the same aircraft (obviously) as they use around Asia. Been to Oz with them 3 times from KL and done the London route
no problems at all you just buy your own drinks. But if you get the BEST sale deals you save enough to have a lot of G&T's

Mr_Wang

Far East - Air Asia
Middle East - Air Arabia
India - Spice Jet
Europe - Ryanair
US - Cheapest
Long Haul - Cheapest

Those are the airlines I tend to look at first, but not always fly with.

The only airline I actively avoid is BA.

Their staff are just a bunch of arrogant stuck up b******s way past their sell by date or they are threatening to strike because someone farted.
Air India are one of the worst airlines I've ever flown, we were delayed 9hours because there was no one to pay for the fuel. The flight was only an hour long.
Swiss, KLM and Singapore are probably my favourite. Though the best service by far is Emirates.

The worst airlines for service have to be any US carrier and most British carriers. The worst pax on flights by far are the British followed closely by Russians.

elstimpo

http://www.businesstraveller.com/news/business-traveller-awards-2011-the-full-results

Well done BA