Airplanes!

PharCyDe · Joined: 10 Apr 2004 Posts: 64 Location: Tennessee, USA

I love airplane travel! Not only is it fun but its much faster than any other way of travel that ive experienced. I wouldnt have it any other way hehe!

Laura · Joined: 16 May 2004 Posts: 446 Location: San Francisco

It's so nice to meet someone else who admits to loving air travel. There's something just so entirely cool about being able to fly! Even though I've had some nasty trips (like the one to Amsterdam in a seat with worn compressed padding and a passenger behind me who kept using her feet to push my seat upright while I was trying to sleep), I've also had some great ones-- like the time we got upgraded to First Class for no apparant reason and I finally got to see how the elite travel. Speaking of which, after having flown trans-oceanic trips in all three classes, I say that burning miles for a First Class ticket or First Class upgrade or much worse ever PAYING for First Class is not worth the extra expense. If you can afford an upgrade to Business, be it in miles or cash, then go for it, but the extras you get for First aren't worth the HUGE increase in price.

I like airports, too...I look around me and I see all these people coming and going from points all over the world -- each with their own story, their own reasons for travelling, their own people at home who love them, and so on. It's a very cool feeling.

Jonathan · Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 185

Speaking of air travel... if you're *not* going to upgrade to Business or First class, and are going to be flying witha an American carrier, the extra leg room on American Airlines makes a HUGE difference. I love them!!!

Laura · Joined: 16 May 2004 Posts: 446 Location: San Francisco

If you're going transpacific there's a couple of excellent Coach options. They cost a bit more than the Coach fares on carriers like United or North West, but they have great extras like footrests in Coach, and greater seat pitches (the pitch is the measurement of space between seats, and therefore the greater the pitch the more legroom you have). Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific are both known for having a very high level of comfort and service in coach. It's amazing what a difference something as simple as a footrest will make on a 9+ hour flight.

EVA Airlines has a "premium economy" service which is basically a business-class style seat but with out the extra amenities like upgraded food and drink and entertainment. If you need the comfort but don't need the extras, it's an excellent value. Premium economy costs a bit more than regular Coach, but much less than Business.

And a final note on something that looks like a great deal but isn't. Business class tickets on Air China (the one based in mainland China, not to be confused with China Airlines, which is based in Taiwan) are cheap, but the service is, by all accounts, horrible. The prices you'll find for their business class tickets on Orbitz are amazing, but I've heard the following things about their service:

flight attendants really only speak Chinese languages
if you don't speak Mandarin they'll pretty much ignore you
cabins are worn and filthy
no seat-back video, even in Business Class
entertainment is usually Chinese-language movies...if they have English languages movies they are 10 years old or more...someone once reported that the entertainment on a flight they took from Beijing to Singapore consisted of a tape of the "World Military Marching Championships" -- and the only entrants were China and North Korea

Be careful if you fly United nonstop from San Francisco to Beijing and Shanghai. United code shares with Air China, which means if you're not paying attention to the small print, your flight could really be on an Air China plane and not a United plane. I've flown United to Asia before and it doesn't sound at all as bad as being on an Air China plane!

cocodrilo · Joined: 12 Apr 2004 Posts: 494 Location: Western Japan

Laura wrote: If you're going transpacific there's a couple of excellent Coach options. They cost a bit more than the Coach fares on carriers like United or North West, but they have great extras like footrests in Coach, and greater seat pitches (the pitch is the measurement of space between seats, and therefore the greater the pitch the more legroom you have). Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific are both known for having a very high level of comfort and service in coach. It's amazing what a difference something as simple as a footrest will make on a 9+ hour flight.

EVA Airlines has a "premium economy" service which is basically a business-class style seat but with out the extra amenities like upgraded food and drink and entertainment. If you need the comfort but don't need the extras, it's an excellent value. Premium economy costs a bit more than regular Coach, but much less than Business.

And a final note on something that looks like a great deal but isn't. Business class tickets on Air China (the one based in mainland China, not to be confused with China Airlines, which is based in Taiwan) are cheap, but the service is, by all accounts, horrible. The prices you'll find for their business class tickets on Orbitz are amazing, but I've heard the following things about their service:

flight attendants really only speak Chinese languages
if you don't speak Mandarin they'll pretty much ignore you
cabins are worn and filthy
no seat-back video, even in Business Class
entertainment is usually Chinese-language movies...if they have English languages movies they are 10 years old or more...someone once reported that the entertainment on a flight they took from Beijing to Singapore consisted of a tape of the "World Military Marching Championships" -- and the only entrants were China and North Korea

Be careful if you fly United nonstop from San Francisco to Beijing and Shanghai. United code shares with Air China, which means if you're not paying attention to the small print, your flight could really be on an Air China plane and not a United plane. I've flown United to Asia before and it doesn't sound at all as bad as being on an Air China plane!

Oh, Air China? Is that the airline that has one of the worst accident records in aviation? They rank way up there with Aeroflot, the Russian carrier! One time, when I was in Hong Kong, my friend & I had the news switched on in the hotel room. Just at that moment, there was the report of an Air China plane coasting off the runway into the bay! (Brand-new plane, too!) Immediately called the airport as we were scheduled to fly home the next day. They informed us that the airport was CLOSED due to this incident & to call back tomorrow! (Things turned out fine for us, no one was injured on that plane, and the plane was later dissected by underwater welders and taken out of the bay!)

cocodrilo · Joined: 12 Apr 2004 Posts: 494 Location: Western Japan

PharCyDe wrote: I love airplane travel! Not only is it fun but its much faster than any other way of travel that ive experienced. I wouldnt have it any other way hehe!

Air travel? Fast, efficient. That's it. Why do I hate it? We pay tons of money and are herded onboard like farm animals. Carry-on baggage rules are not enforced(HEY, that guy in fronta me's got his granny in that bag!) and most flights are overbooked. I'm the patient type and if there is a problem, will not rant & rave, but you have to admit, unless you're under 5'7", the space provided for a passenger flying economy class is far from reasonable. They should have a "mini" section. Smaller seat spaces, with 10% off for, how does one say and be politcally correct, "vertically challenged" passengers... :wink:

Laura · Joined: 16 May 2004 Posts: 446 Location: San Francisco

I've got another Air China horror story:

"In your most recent article detailing your readers' worst airline experiences, I was reminded of a flight I took with Air China. Upon entering the Air China plane in Beijing, I was greeted by the intense stink of urine, whereupon I discovered a puddle of it in my seat from the last passenger. Kindly, I was offered another seat and promptly chowed down the in-flight snack, a bag of dried seahorses."

This came from a reader's letter to the "Ask the Pilot" section of Salon magazine, www.salon.com. You wil have to view an online ad to get a free day pass to read the entire article, but that's all they say about Air China. The article is mostly about Southwest and JetBlue.