Monday, June 23, 2008

More on airlines

I didn't mean to pick on United in my last post, it just happened to be the airline that the woman worked for. I hear people complain a lot about United, but as I have said before, I don't think they are too bad. They give frequent fliers extra room (an excellent loyalty program benefit), and you can hear the pilots communicate with ATC. I find this calming. The ground staff and flight attendants are generally very nice.

So here is my list, best to worst, of domestic airlines I have flown:

Jetblue
Midwest Express
The Old TWA (RIP)
United
Delta
Continental
Southwest
American
US Airways

The bottom two tie for worst--I try to avoid them.

Among international carriers, my list is

Singapore (in my egalitarian dream, everyone gets to fly it at least once)
Lufthansa
Cathay Pacific
KAL
ANA
Emirates
KLM
Air France
Thai
Air Canada
Alitalia
Air India
The Ukrainian National Airline--soviet era plane smelled of oil

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

El Al and Alitalia have finally agreed on a merger. The new name they've agreed upon: Vell I Tellya

Can't resist this one either since you'll be hanging your shingle in Los Angeles for a while: The story of how Van Nuys got its name.

In 1872 a group of fairly frum settlers arrived at the top of the santa monica mountains after sojourning inland from the ocean. After surveying the expanse of valley before him, one alter kaker looked at the other and said: "you know... veh nice."

Anonymous said...

This last Sunday evening, I experienced a JetBlue cancellation at Dulles while trying to get to the SF Bay Area. While I understand the stress, the JetBlue representatives on the ground became quite rude and surly and generally unhelpful to exasperated and demanding customers. There was one woman who was wheelchair bound trying to get to her scheduled surgery the next morning. I'm not sure if she was left high and dry like the rest of us. My best option with JetBlue was to wait until Tuesday morning.

Their phone reps, on the other hand, were very helpful with the situation, but couldn't get a better flight. In either case, they couldn't tell me what other airlines were flying from Dulles to the Bay Area.

I got my refund and eventually took Southwest - they were so much more accomodating. And they don't charge for a 2nd bag yet.

Anonymous said...

what about northworst?

Anonymous said...

Random thought: Was Northwest Airlines the first example of product placement in film history?

(North By Northwest)