That Norwegian sure makes a good Pad Thai... Wait...

swisspilot said:
It's not just being able to return an item, but the overall service you get, especially when calling customer service. In Europe it's often so useless that you just give up and deal with the problem yourself.
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Yeah, I've come to appreciate dealing with it myself. 85% of the time the person answering my 1800 call sits in an Indian sweatshop and calls themselves Andy or Alex.
Most Europeans are initially impressed with the American way of doing business. Free Wifi everywhere sells a lot of stuff, too. At the end of the day, its not cutting the cheese, though.
 
Same thing happened with the shipping industry. Operating under a foreign flag with contract crews essentially working as slave labor.

FWIW Ireland is closing (somewhat) their tax loophole.
 
dasleben said:
Bulgaria Air: Awful. Cramped and dirty. Rude flight attendants who scoffed when I spoke English.
Kuwait Airways: Hahaha. No.
Ethiopian: Don't touch anything.
Alitalia: Absolutely not.
Aer Lingus: Good if you enjoy paying €2 for a soda intra-Europe. Long-haul, on-par.
British Airways: Inferior intra-Europe. On-par in long-haul.
Lufthansa: Inferior intra-Europe. On-par in long-haul.
Emirates: Superior.
Singapore: Superior.
Oman Air: Superior.
Korean: On-par intra-Asia. Long-haul, somewhat superior (though I was business class on an A380, so that might be skewed).
Asiana: On-par.
China Airlines: On-par.
JAL: On-par.
ANA: On-par.
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Hmm a few things I'd like to point out from that:

-Aer Lingus is an LCC inter-EU.

-You feel Lufthansa is on-par inter-EU with US domestic services? They serve hot meals in coach on flights around 2 hours in length with free booze. And in my long-haul flight, FRA-SFO in coach had better food and service than United SFO-FRA in biz. United had the same dinner menu in biz on a 10 hour flight as they did in domestic first class on the 2 hour SFO-YVR flight I took the week before. What kind of BS is that? I also got more booze in coach on LH then I did in Biz on United, along with more friendly F/As.

-I'd find it very hard to picture biz on Asiana, JAL, and ANA being on-par with United(who is the biggest US player in Asia), maybe Delta or American but even then I'd be surprised. But in coach, I can assure you only Air China, China Southern, China Eastern, China Airlines(see a pattern), and maybe Philippine Airlines are on-par with or worse than US airlines service wise long-haul. My ex-girlfriend who works for UA travels to Manila once a month, and she buys ZEDs on EVA anytime she can't get biz or better on United because she finds coach on UA unbareable.

I think Oman is really under-rated by Westerners, glad you find them superior. From what I've read, they look amazing. I'm surprised your co-worker complained about Turkish, they've been winning lots of awards for best long-haul catering and service lately. They even do hot towel services before each meal in coach. Then again, I've never seen any reviews on the seats themselves.
 
ChasenSFO said:
Hmm a few things I'd like to point out from that:

-Aer Lingus is an LCC inter-EU.

-You feel Lufthansa is on-par inter-EU with US domestic services? They serve hot meals in coach on flights around 2 hours in length with free booze. And in my long-haul flight, FRA-SFO in coach had better food and service than United SFO-FRA in biz. United had the same dinner menu in biz on a 10 hour flight as they did in domestic first class on the 2 hour SFO-YVR flight I took the week before. What kind of BS is that? I also got more booze in coach on LH then I did in Biz on United, along with more friendly F/As.

-I'd find it very hard to picture biz on Asiana, JAL, and ANA being on-par with United(who is the biggest US player in Asia), maybe Delta or American but even then I'd be surprised. But in coach, I can assure you only Air China, China Southern, China Eastern, China Airlines(see a pattern), and maybe Philippine Airlines are on-par with or worse than US airlines service wise long-haul. My ex-girlfriend who works for UA travels to Manila once a month, and she buys ZEDs on EVA anytime she can't get biz or better on United because she finds coach on UA unbareable.

I think Oman is really under-rated by Westerners, glad you find them superior. From what I've read, they look amazing. I'm surprised your co-worker complained about Turkish, they've been winning lots of awards for best long-haul catering and service lately. They even do hot towel services before each meal in coach. Then again, I've never seen any reviews on the seats themselves.
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Many of the Asian carriers are now offering happy ending massages in class B coach. I've got official video to prove that.
 
dasleben said:
I swear, some of you guys must not have ever flown on these non-US airlines. You guys make them sound like utopia, but I'm here to tell you, they're not!

Here's how I'd rank foreign carriers I've flown on, often in business class, compared to US airlines:

Bulgaria Air: Awful. Cramped and dirty. Rude flight attendants who scoffed when I spoke English.
Kuwait Airways: Hahaha. No.
Ethiopian: Don't touch anything.
Alitalia: Absolutely not.
Aer Lingus: Good if you enjoy paying €2 for a soda intra-Europe. Long-haul, on-par.
British Airways: Inferior intra-Europe. On-par in long-haul.
Lufthansa: Inferior intra-Europe. On-par in long-haul.
Emirates: Superior.
Singapore: Superior.
Oman Air: Superior.
Korean: On-par intra-Asia. Long-haul, somewhat superior (though I was business class on an A380, so that might be skewed).
Asiana: On-par.
China Airlines: On-par.
JAL: On-par.
ANA: On-par.

Oh, and I just flew with a guy who got out of a Turkish business class seat hating life, but that's second-hand.

My point is, you all would be surprised at just how bad these foreign, state-run airlines can be. One of the things that annoys me on JC is the constant "Everyone outside the US does it better," about well, just about everything. It's not true. Trust me. I'd take a US carrier over many, many foreign carriers, and that comes from personal experience.
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Your list is just not relevant as you include LCC's
Bristish Airways is private (is there still ANYTHING remotely public in UK ?)
Lufthansa is private
Ask anyone who has the choice between a Delta or Air France flight if he's going to fly Delta given the choice
BA's Biz class or First blows any US carrier out of the water, so is Virgin Atlantic
I've flown to Zanzibar with Oman Air, biz class : mind-blowingly good, like AF's First.
Asiana : watch for who's flying the a/c
Turkish is a 4-star Skytrax airline
Etc.
Not saying everyone outside the US does it better, but the US carriers have fallen so far behind that competition has caught up !
 
Am I the only one who can't get the lyrics "...sure plays a mean pinball..." out of my head?
 
Pépé le Pilot said:
Ask anyone who has the choice between a Delta or Air France flight if he's going to fly Delta given the choice
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It really depends on the route, the AF flight Rio de Janerio - CDG on the 747 in economy class is not really that great, the seats are ultra crammed, the airplane is old and the cabin service really nothing special. The general customer service: no comment.
 
swisspilot said:
It really depends on the route, the AF flight Rio de Janerio - CDG on the 747 in economy class is not really that great, the seats are ultra crammed, the airplane is old and the cabin service really nothing special. The general customer service: no comment.
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The 744 was to be taken out of service so interiors have not been updated to the newer ones, I think they will be phased out after the World Cup, but yes, they are hi-density and pretty beat up... The Rio flight is a A330 route now...
 
Pépé le Pilot said:
The 744 was to be taken out of service so interiors have not been updated to the newer ones, I think they will be phased out after the World Cup, but yes, they are hi-density and pretty beat up... The Rio flight is a A330 route now...
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They have two flights a day one is done with the 330 the other with the 747, at least it was still like that couple weeks ago. On a local aviation magazine they said the route will be served by 777 soon.

I think the AF 747 is the last Jumbo flying in and out of Brazil.

It's amazing how intl traffic grew in Rio.
3 years ago there were only an handful of airlines going to the US and Europe once a day, now every single airlines has two flights a day to each destination, they just started service now to Northern Africa also.
 
You know, after watching a video I posted in another thread showing the reactions of a bunch of Japanese people watching a 737 freggin explode, it made me think. People interviewed after evacuating this plane:


Even after losing everything they had packed and brought on board, the China Airlines pax were far less frantic than the interviewed people on the Spirit flight. Why are we such cowards?

Pépé le Pilot said:
The 744 is also used for the CDG-SFO route in summer too (A340 during low season). It is cramped back there, that's for sure...
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I haven't seen the 747 in SFO for well over a year and a half. In the winter it used to go A340, but we've had a daily 777-200 and 777-300ER for quite a while now with no downgrade. I think with XL Airways and United starting CDG, AF decided to step up their game.
 
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It really depends on loads and AF is pretty good at switching airframes. But it is true that the 777 sector is huge, unfortunately for the 330/340 pilots who are stuck with Africa and some South American destinations...
 
Pépé le Pilot said:
It really depends on loads and AF is pretty good at switching airframes. But it is true that the 777 sector is huge, unfortunately for the 330/340 pilots who are stuck with Africa and some South American destinations...
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Yeah Air France was pretty extreme here at SFO with switching air frames. In 3 years the daily flight(s) went from 340/380, to 747, to A330, to 773, to the current 772/773. Pretty impressive they could put all that together to manage demand on a long-haul route. I've never seen such a huge capacity gain/drop from another carrier.
 
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