best airline?

[muppet]

Terry, if you had travelled tourist class you would have saved enough money to buy more property.

[tpr2]

That's a scary thought Muppet. One I best not think about.

[Perry]

. . and a chocolate moose for desert . . .

You sure it wasn't elk?

[tpr2]

doh!!!.

Oh well at least that's only the first one for 2009 Perry.

[Orkibi]

Singapore Airline is the best out there and been the best for the last 5 years atlist.
the service the food and the comfort is the best.
they always go the extra mile for you.
they have different set of rules that are much more pro passenger and flexible.

I will druthers Air NZ then Qantas for domestic and Cross tasman.

[Perry]

"druthers" Now there's a good word for
a Sunday evening. Nearly made me stumble
into the haha.

[tpr2]

Unfortunately my travels abroad only take me to the Gold Coast so I druthers emirates orkibi.

I flew qantas to Singapore last year and they were shocking. The didn't even have any food in the lounge in Singapore when we arrived with a 6 hour stop over.

I made the mistake of trying to use some of my frequent flyer miles by booking economy and upgradeing to business. Even though there were seats available in business they were not going to let me upgrade (I had over a million miles with them and I had been a platinum club member until swithcing to emirates) which really annoyed me however a chat to them from my friend who is an ex high court judge and suddenly I am back up the front.

I'm not sure if it was his Barry White sounding voice or the fact that his passport shows the Right Honourable XXXXXXXX which swung the jury.

[freeloader]

I travel to NZ and OZ quite a lot and I love emirates. It's like business class but at cattle class price. Having said that Emirates is usually 20% more expensive than standard air nz/qantas. I only travel on them when they have special.

The next best is Air NZ. Their tasman planes are all new with individual entertainment systems and overe 100 movies. For a 3 hour flight that ain't bad.

Qantas is comes in third cos they have old planes with shared movies and crappy sound systems. Watch out as Qantas sometimes codeshare with other low budget airline like jetstar and lan chile.

For longer trips I love Qantas Business Class.

[powerbroker50]

We just went on a 14 night Holland America cruise to New Zealand which was great first class all the way. As a member of the Qantas club we dwcided to fly back from Auckland to Melbourne on Qantas, although Emirates would have been cheaper. What we got was maybe the worst flight I have been on for years. The plane was as old as the hills and it was so cramped the my legs were hitting the seat in front. Frankly an old 737 for a four hour flight is a disgrace and I will consider dropping my club membership.

[Rolf]

We made the unfortunate mistake of flying with Aerolineas Argentinas in June 08. The worst airline in my experience, absolutely shocking. They are totally unreliable.

Auckland - BA: First rescheduled to fly 3 days earlier, then late 5 hours on the day.
BA - Santiago: Cancelled due to strike. No refunds given (we did get a refund 6 months later though after heavy argumentation). We bought last minute tickets with LAN Chile instead - what a difference - very professional, clean and punctual.
Lima - BA: Not too bad, only 1 hour late!
BA - Auckland: Scheduled to fly on time, but still delayed without any announcement. Everybody also had to go through an extra 'security check' at the boarding gate where the flight attendants had to look through each piece of hand luggage. They didn't look very carefully though and just handed my bag back to me unopened - but of course the whole operation still caused great confusion and took yet another hour.

Old planes, dirty and absolutely no entertainment on a 13hr flight from Buenos Aires to Auckland. Well ok they did display their logo on the (shared) screen, all the way...

Never again!

[Wayne]

Terry, if you had travelled tourist class you would have saved enough money to buy more property.

Why would someone fly Business to Aus unless the company (not my company but some other company I don't own) pays? Seems like so much money for 3hrs?

[revdev]

We fly between Istanbul and NZ a couple of times a year.

Choices were either Singapore or Malaysian out of Instanbul, or hop over to London for JAL, Garuda, Thai, Malaysian, Cathay Pacific etc. We prefer to go through Asia as my GF is Turkish and trying to get visa's via USA was a bit of an ordeal. Also I am very much over the 12 hour flight legs...in fact I hate them with a passion.

Emirates comes along, offers a broken trip of 4hrs/7hrs/7hrs/3hrs...perfect. The food is a step up and the service has been great (all bar one trip.)

JAL was the worst...it felt like the planes temp gauge was set at about 35 degrees and the amount of hand luggage they let on was unbelievable...I think ours were the only suitcases left in the hold.

G

[donna]

Air NZ is my choice - for domestic and trans-tasman travel. I like the ease of booking online including seat request.

Cheers,

Donna

[Psilan]

Pacific Blue will make you pay for your food tho, and their planes seem to be old.

My partner is an air hostess with PB, so they have the hottest attendants . The oldest plane they have is 8 years old iirc. Most of their lanes are 1-3 years old. When I flew to Fiji last August the plane was on it's 2nd flight. Was all shiny! After the flight you could see the dirt that accumulated.

They are fun to fly with, but if you were flying them every day I guess you would start to hear the same jokes on the PA after a while.

Prior to her getting the job I liked Qantas, but would be too scared to fly with them now. I can't stand flying with Air NZ. I saw cabin crew spill tea on a lady once and laugh, then apologise. Their uniform and planes are so old fashioned looking.

[tpr2]

Why would someone fly Business to Aus unless the company (not my company but some other company I don't own) pays? Seems like so much money for 3hrs?

Theres are number of reasons wayne.

additional carry on luggage which when you are doing the flight every week means I don't have to wait for my bags to come off the plane.

They provide a limosine service door to door as part of the ticket if you live with 65 km's of the ariport so that saves me $16per day for long term parking for 365 days a year.

I have no wait when I get to the airport rather than waiting in a line with 250 to 300 people in it I go straight up to the counter saving me maybe an hour each week.

I have a fantastic lounge to work in rather than out in the main airport area and they serve some of my favorite foods and champagnes.

I have an entire overhead locker for my carry on luggage which I don't get in economy and let me tell you when people shove there heavy "I've been on holiday and bought all this crap souvenirs" onto your precious $6,000 laptop you start to appreciate the extra space in business class

So yes it is more expensive but try traveling to and from Brisbane every week for 4 years and let me know what you think