Blue Odysseys

Archive for the ‘Airlines Flight Reviews’ Category

Recently I made arrangements via Continental One Pass reward miles to fly to London on Lufthansa. Since my travel days were very flexible I was willing to take whatever they had available. They asked if I would be willing to fly through Frankfurt on Lufthansa if they put me in business class since they have nothing available for Continental reward travel for the entire month of June. Well… ok… sure.

This flight was the best flight I have ever taken in my life, and I have taken many flights between Houston and London, since England is home for me. I was a little concerned during the boarding as they allowed people with children and those needing assistance with boarding to board first – which took at least 30 minutes while the throng of other passengers seemed to be pressing toward the gate. When they announced Business Class to board at their leisure, I presented my boarding pass and passport. At that point I realized I had left my other travel documents, including my additional boarding passes, in my travel dossier on the seat in the departure lounge.  I was panicked. They said… leave your things here you can go and see if it is there then just come back without going thru the line again… they had just opened for coach boarding and a 747 holds a LOT of people. Luckily I found my travel wallet and finally boarded.

The seat was comfortable. Lots of leg room. There was a quilted blanket and feather pillow. Having never flown Lufthansa before it took me a little while to understand the seat operation as well as the in-flight entertainment. After take-off I realized my seat had a MASSAGE in the lumbar area. It was awesome! During flight we were served two rounds of beverages before they brought the appetizers (we had a choice of 3 different starters). They served a variety of wines with the meal. Then they brought the main course, of which we also had a choice of 3 menus as well as desserts and apertifs.

After dinner I decided to watch a movie. Their inflight entertainment system had at least 100 options for viewing. Additionally they offered music, games and language courses. The seat lay to an almost flat position and even though the legs were still at a downward angle it was very comfortable and I was able to sleep.

There were several times during flight that passengers had issues. One guy lost his debit card – two flight attendants took the time to take his entire seat apart to find it. The guy next to me somehow unplugged the earphones to use his own fancy ones – and ended up breaking it – but again the flight attendant was somehow able to take the entire seat apart and restore his ability to hear audio during flight.

The landing was perfect even though it was raining when we landed.

I will fly Lufthansa again! They have great attention to detail and offer great service. As a matter of fact, we are flying Lufthansa in the fall when we go to Europe – so we will be able to give a review of their COACH service and attention to detail.

The only thing I found bothersome was more the fault of Frankfurt Airport – we were not given a gate to pull up to but they unloaded the plane ON the runway IN the RAIN on staircases without any cover. So we had to grab our carryons and walk down metal steps in pouring rain and get on buses that were waiting to take us to the airport. This screwed up my knee for the duration of the trip. Frankfurt Airport is the most disgusting place ever… and I will be writing a blog about that later.

I’m never flying American Airlines in this lifetime, and neither will anyone I know after they hear what a bunch of rude, unhelpful monsters they were for something that was NOT OUR FAULT.

We had a trip planned through Expedia.com (who are also fuckers, but that is another topic) for three of us to fly to Mexico. All tickets and connections were purchased through Expedia. The first person, my cousin, was flying Continental from London to Texas where he would meet my buddy, and they would both fly to Florida (where I am). The next morning the three of us would fly to Mexico on an early morning flight. The initial tickets we purchased from Expedia were to fly out at 9:00 AM, a reasonable hour, BUT, American kept sending us flight updates during the two months before departure, our final departure time being 6:00 AM – this is HOW we got SCREWED in the first place.

There was, of course, a snafu. My cousins plane couldn’t land due to foul weather, and when it did land, they of course pulled HIM out of the regular line to do an extensive “are you a terrorist” search, even though he was wearing his police ID. WHATEVER. Anyway, Continental KNEW he had to get on a flight and they were trying to find him in time to get him and my buddy on the flight to Florida. Of course the 10 min we needed we didn’t get and the plane left without them. It was the last flight out for the day.

The next flight coming to Florida was arriving too late the following moring to allow us to catch the flight to Mexico. We are all in a panic, I am in Florida and my friend with my limited English speaking cousin, stuck in Texas. I called Expedia. They would have been happy to change the flights for Mexico for a small fee, but AMERCIAN AIRLINES WOULDN’T LET THEM. They called American Airlines. I called American Airlines. The people that worked for Continental in TEXAS called them and told them they should do all they could to help since it was not the passengers fault.

Know what they said? Tough, you want to change tickets it is $700 dollars PER PERSON. They all called a supervisor who said the same thing. NO ONE at American Airlines cared, was helpful, NOTHING. Know who saved the day? CONTINENTAL AIRLINES. They felt very bad for us and found a way for us all to go for 400$ TOTAL COST TO ME. So, American Airlines, you have forever lost a customer and for what you put us through I will tell anyone that will listen how shitty your service is and not to fly with you. American Airlines should be ashamed of themselves. CONTINENTAL AIRLINES on the other hand, went above and beyond the call of duty to help us and saved our vacation!

We traveled to Europe from the US wanting to see Malta and Tuscany. Being the travel savvy chicks that we are we decided to try and do this as economically as possible. We flew to London from Houston, flew to Tuscany and then on to Malta, back to London, and finally to Houston using cheap European puddle jumpers to get to our destinations. You don’t even want to know how many hours we put into fine tuning the flights so we had enough time in each place, enough time to get to the airports, etc

We saved a CONSIDERABLE amount of money doing it this way. Before you try this at home there are some things you need to be aware of.  With both RyanAir and Easyjet… you are allowed 1 suitcase and 1 carry on (which is obviously a purse for a woman). It will be WEIGHED. And the limit is NOT 50 pounds, it is closer to 20. And your empty suitcase weighs something you know, even before you put something IN IT. EVERY pound over that you will PAY FOR and it is expensive.

Ryanair who we now call CRYIN AIR – allowing 15kg Checked Luggage + 10kg Hand Luggage and you may not share weight with your travel companions!!! When Ryanair states a limit of 15kg this doesn’t mean that when travelling as a couple one can carry 20kg and the other 10kg. “All baggage allowances are personal and cannot be combined”. This nonsense is being enforced to the extent that people are having to repack at the check in desk so that each individual bag conforms to the weight limit.

And here is the kicker – if you go OVER you are charged 15 EUROS per KG that you are over. So if you take two pairs of shoes instead of one you are totally fucked. TO MAKE THINGS WORSE, THEY INCREASED THEIR PER KILO OVERAGE CHARGE WHILE WE WERE TRAVELING!!!! WHAT A BUNCH OF STUPID BULLSHIT – WHEN WE LEFT IT WAS 10 EUROS PER KILO – WE HAD THAT ON OUR DOCUMENTS, BUT THE BITCH AT THE AIRPORT IN MALTA INFORMED US IT WAS RAISED TWO DAYS AGO, FUCK YOU VERY MUCH.

Then we have the assholios over at SLEAZY Jet – well really it is EasyJet, but having flown with them several times now, I am so done, although they are WAY MORE REASONABLE than Ryan Air. You can check up to 8 pieces of checked-in hold baggage to a maximum combined weight of 20kg. A fee per kilo for excess weight is charged at the airport prior to departure of only 12 EUROS per KG over.

So do you really save money on the ticket? PROBABLY NOT! Other airlines charged 300 dollars as opposed to Ryanair and Easyjet less than $150, but when you add on the extra pounds for your luggage, it may come out pretty close to even. At least you can BUY some stuff on your vacation, other than what you brought with you. And some clean underwear. We are NOT heavy packers but being gone for two weeks with no opportunity to wash clothes, we obviously exceeded the weight limit.

If you live in America you may opt instead to use one of the more expensive airlines instead of doing what we did. We were constantly trying to fit our purses in our carry-ons, packing, re-packing, weighing, and worrying. If you are traveling light for a short stay, not the two weeks we were gone or if you have the opportunity to do laundry while away, go for it and try the cheaper options of Ryanair and Easyjet – god damn though, where is British Airways when you need them.

Please think about what your needs really are before you chose an option like Ryanair or Easyjet. It just may wind up costing you more money, and more frustration than you bargained for!

My friend and I traveled overseas last summer, visiting Tuscany and then on to Malta. Being the travel savvy chicks that we are, knowing the ins and outs of where to sniff out a deal, I suggested we fly to London, Gatwick airport on Continental Airlines and then take one a hop over to Tuscany…. (please see blog on the horror of renting a car from LocAuto) after an 8 hour layover in the airport. Thinking we would be able to sleep on the overseas flight, we went ahead and chose this option, both being One Pass members we knew we would be getting valuable miles.

OMG – those miles were the most costly miles of our lives. Those 4860 miles was the longest journey we have ever taken, together or singularly because of its similarity in being in a Turkish prison, which in retrospect might have been a better alternative. Torture, it was torture.

We were sure to book well in advance and managed to secure bulkhead seats so that we would be comfortable for our journey. We sat in our seats, looked through all the infight stuff and settled down for what we thought would be several hours of conversation to be followed by sleep. BOY WERE WE WRONG!

The seat configuration was 2 seats on either aisle and 3 seats in the middle. A family of 8 got on with a mother and father and 6 children. They were all to sit in the middle configuration of seats. And not together. Then to our horror the mother and father sit down, with a TODDLER in their lap. This child was no small infant. She had teeth because she kept baring them to us. I thought ok they have to be putting her in that seat on the other side of the parents…seeing there were three of them. WRONG. THEY INTENDED TO ALLOW THIS CHILD TO SIT IN THEIR LAPS FOR THE ENTIRE 9 HOUR JOURNEY!!!!! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME??

I can’t get up to use the toilet if the plane farts, but they are going to hold this child in their laps the entire flight and it is going to behave? I don’t think so. And so begins the flight of HELL.

As soon as the flight took off, this child was on the floor and running all over the place. The flight attendants had them corral her so they could server dinner and drinks – which by this point I seriously needed. But wait, the mother ordered wine herself and poured some into the childs bottle and mixed it with apple juice then gave it to her. After about an hour of her running around and drinking her wine juice, and the parents were both engaged watching in flight entertainment, the decided to corral her and put her in the seat for a little while – where she continued to shreik, drink wine juice and watch a little tv. Ah peace for 10 minutes then all of a sudden all this commotion to our left, yet again. WTF is going on now? oh the child peed, in the seat – she peed through her diaper, through her clothes and onto the seat cushion. By now flight attendants are present trying to clean up the mess. So they changed her diaper, right there in the seat of course, and put some clean clothes on her so now mabye she will settle down?

So now the cabin is dark because most of the passengers are sleeping soundly in their seats, but we are still enjoying the shrieking of the child who is now sitting in her fathers lap directly across the seat from us – who is tossing her up in the air and catching her and saying “good night” in his Nigerian accent. Ok good night already – toss – toss – toss and the wine apple juice mix must be churning in the childs stomach by now, but no, Mount Vesuvius – she vomited — all over herself and her parents and the seats. Call the fucking fire department already – we now have 3 flight attendants trying to clean up the mess, hoping that no one else got sick from the fumes.

I was never so glad when a plane landed in my life – I love Continental – I am a Continental girl and have flown them almost exclusively for the last 20 years, since the city where I live is a Continental hub. Now I understand that there are issues with children on overseas flights, and that is all well and good… but seriously, we have some pointers for you.

1. WHYin the name of ALL THAT IS HOLY IS THIS CHILD NOT REQUIRED TO HAVE A GOD DAMNED SEAT FOR A 9 HOUR FLIGHT? ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE? How could that possibly be safe? not only for her but for the other passengers? WE ARE TRULY DISGUSTED AND STUNNED THAT THIS WAS ALLOWED!!!!
2. Most passengers do NOT want to sit next to spewing, screaming, vomiting children.
3. Most passengers do NOT think children of other passengers are CUTE nor do we want to lend a hand looking after them during a 9-hour flight.
4. Hell we don’t even want to fly ON the same flight as children – why can’t you have an all adult flight? I bet lots of folks wold take it -
5. Why don’t you have a CHILDREN AREA on the plane. You have an EXIT ROW for fucks sake that says NO CHILDREN THIS ROW, why can’t you do it with other parts of the plane.

This was one of the worst flights I have ever taken, but so much of it could have been avoided not just for my friend and I, but for the other hundred or so passengers that were bothered by this stupid behavior – FORCE THEM TO BUY A SEAT FOR CHILDREN FLYING OVER SEAS IF THOSE CHILDREN CAN WALK AND TALK… or maybe next time my friend and I will just buy one seat and take turns sitting in each others laps. It is the best interest of the safety of your passengers and cabin crew.