For most of my 41 years as an engineer I traveled nearly every week and about 75% of my trips were by air - plus for trips of 5+ hours, I could travel in business class (similar to first class). The rest of my trips were all in
"self-loading cargo" class. I don't think I was a demanding passenger, but I did travel a lot and I noticed things.
Frankly, despite loving aircraft in-general, I never really enjoyed flying - regardless of class - but some airlines are more pleasant than others and they all have their good and bad aspects (well, some have only the latter - see below). Here is a bit of run-down of my experiences:
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US Air - usually late with poor service and inhospitable airport lounges
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United - see above but with airplanes that needed cleaning
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American - see above but with silvery airplanes
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Northwest - see above but with crankier cabin staff
-
Air Canada - normally reasonably clean & occasionally on-time - but with
very poor customer communications (I could find out more about my $4.50 Big Mac from a pimply-faced 15 year old than I could about my $6000 trip to Europe from an "airline professional"), plus fairly crummy food and olympically sh!tty movies (like I mean - truly UNWATCHABLE). In terms of customer service, the company motto seems to be:
"We're not happy until you're not happy". The one good thing about Air Canada is their
Maple Leaf airport lounges: quite good food including great soups and a salad bar, open, free and very well-stocked bar and lots of comfy chairs - which is good because of the many weather delays caused by Canada's challenging climate.
-
Lufthansa - nice planes and good food, but very cranky cabin personnel, plus you normally have to go through Frankfurt (FRA) which truly is one of the most poorly organized and inadequately signed airports anywhere (worse even than Toronto Pearson - YYZ). Despite the great Lufthansa airport lounges, a lot of people think that FRA was designed by the French in retaliation for WW-1 and WW-2.....
-
BA - OK, but tending toward el-cheapo service recently and the pretty chaotic Heathrow "
experience/ordeal"
-
JET Airways of India -
very unreliable scheduling, poor food, chaotic boarding, unpleasant cabin environment, crummy movies and you almost always have to go through New Delhi (DEL) - a truly "remarkable" experience.
-
Nigeria Airways - OMG....holy sh!t.....panic attack.....chaotic boarding,
very surely cabin staff and an 11-hour flight from Port Harcourt (PHC) to NYC-JFK with
NO food or beverages because they forgot to cater the airplane in PHC
- never again - get me T-F outta here!
............
-
KLM - ahhhhhh, now you're talkin' airline.....well managed with very nice airplanes, good food and an endless supply of tall, willowy Dutch blondes in the cabin, plus they always seemed to be happy and friendly. The one major downside of KLM is going through Schiphol Airport (AMS) in Amsterdam with its legendary "
auto-shuffle" baggage-
loosing system which is odd because on every other issue, the Dutch are so well-organized.
I have never lost a bag on any other airline (not even Nigeria Airways...which had other "charms") - but I have never flown through Schiphol
without loosing a bag. Since then, I
never-ever check a bag. After much practice, I can go to China for two weeks with only carry-on luggage. Travel light and breeze through security etc. plus grab your rental car or cab and be gone - while others are still wondering where their luggage has gone.
Anyhow, I haven't flown at all since COVID - and at this point, I would rather have my head stapled to the floor than get on ANY airliner.
I still love airplanes, but I'm with Marty: if I can't drive there, I don't wanna go.
Pete