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I wouldn't care much if you're flying from or to Oz. 3 hours is too short to worry about. Pacific Blue will make you pay for your food tho, and their planes seem to be old.
For the long haul flights, AIR NZ kicks butt imo. Thai & Singapore are also good, but the ER planes esp 777 ERs have fewer seats, therefore more leg room, and that's the single best thing you can hope for if flying in coach on a 10+ hr flite.
Emirates are fine, tidy, nice and friendly crew, good entertainment etc but I found the leg room on their airplanes to be rubbish. Fit for Asians and Middle Easterners but way too narrow for male adult Europeans and Pac Islanders. Still way better than the old Lufthansa, old planes, uninterested staff, German food, almost non-existing entertainment, you name it they suck at it.
I've just read that the Emirates now use Boeing's ER planes too (on some routes). It pays to check & know your airplane models before booking.
Hey mate, here's some more info for ya, if choosing Emirates try to get hold of a seat on this one it looks like a winner, 34 inch on economy is very good:
With a range of more than 7,880 nautical miles (14,594km), the Boeing 777-300ER could fly from Glasgow to Dubai and back again non-stop. Ideal for long-haul routes, the aircraft is currently operated on services from Dubai to Sydney and Auckland, via Bangkok and Dubai to Manila.
A key feature of the aircraft is Emirates' unique Information, Communications and Entertainment system - ICE - which offers 500 channels of video, audio and games on demand from every passenger's personal video screen. The system is available to customers travelling in every class as well as the multitude of entertainment options available, including email and SMS facilities.
Business Class offers passengers comfortable seats with a pitch of up to 60 inches and an adjustable winged head-rest with six-way movement for optimum comfort. Economy passengers can enjoy more comfort than ever with roomy cabins, 34 inch seat pitch, and adjustable footrests and headrests.
Air New Zealand used to be the best, many years ago. Now they can't even get your luggage to meet you at the other end and forget about service, thats gone
Emirates on the other hand is great seeing as its about the most reasonably priced as well
for service and price we've liked singapore, malaysian and cathay
as a former 747 engineer i doubt i will ever fly korean again after seeing that the door near me was "pinned", i pointed it out to the attendant and got a withering look and then noticed ALL the doors were pinned, a major safety violation
and i thought if that's what they were going to do in the cabin where everyone could see i didn't want to know what other safety regs they were ignoring in the rest of the plane
but worset flight hands down was london to cairo in an air sudan 707
the woman next to me had mismatching halves to her seat belt, during takeoff the guy in front of me's seat went into recline and stayed loose for the rest of the flight and if you leaned into the aisle you could look straight forward to the pilot as the cockpit door had been removed
though we were scheduled to stop in athens apparently there weren't enough passengers there to make it worthwhile so we overflew
on the return flight there weren't enough seats as they had sold too many in katoom? so we had to stay another day...
I've flown them the last couple of years to Europe. The first time they were fantastic! really friendly staff & I was upgraded to Business class.
The second time they were good, but the staff weren't quite as friendly & they also removed the footrests, apparently to save weight (= save fuel) which made the seats uncomfortable as your legs were left dangling. The seats are narrower but it's not a problem for me, I'm on the thinner side.
This year I'm on the A380..... should be good. Oh & you can login to their website & choose where you want to sit.
Air New Zealand used to be the best, many years ago. Now they can't even get your luggage to meet you at the other end and forget about service, thats gone
Sounds like you had a bad experience Wenlee. I flew with them this Xmas to Fiji and found them great. I had to reschedule our flights home, and being on one of the outer islands during the storms, the satellite phone connection was very dodgy. The agent I dealt with phoned me back 4 times after each disconnection to sort out new flights. I was impressed and relieved with his perseverance. And in spite of media reports about the chaos at Nadi airport, everything went very smoothly and Air NZ staff were great.
I continue to be a loyal Air NZ fan! (Thai Airlines is also very good...)
Stay away from the budget airlines, they often cancel or reschedule flights if there aren't enough people, and might not even tell you. They pay inexperienced staff less wages, and scrimp on maintenance. They charge for food, water, checked in bags etc. Overall, not really worth it.
My last small national carrier flight they nearly landed at the wrong airport, which was still under construction. Mental note : stick to the main carriers.
My last budget airline flight pilots announcement "We are experiencing technical difficulties and returning back, because the aircraft won't climb". A few worried passengers there were...
Yeah I found that. Made a booking and found the link to choose a seat. Figured it would reserve a seat but ended up with a boarding pass 6months out from the flight (I have trouble finding these things after 6 months). I found that you could print another later if you lost the 1st.
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