Which Airline do you like the most?

[benthewraith]

Which airline do you like the most?

Due to many airline conversations, issues, etc, I'm curious as to which airline fellow MR users like to fly on.

Due to the hounding from others concerning the broadness of the "Other" selection and the inclusion of several major airlines, can you please post (politely of course), the airline you'd like to count your vote under)

Although not completely accurate due to the elimination of the Other column, I have counted all votes included in the statements, and included multiple selections (if one said Jetblue, Air New Zealand, and Qantas, such as iGary .). These votes are post votes, as in People who casted votes in the posts. This helps a lot in getting a more fair poll. I wish I could go and add those, but you all have already voted.

I'll update this at 12:00 PM EDT

Airlines Post Votes

Southwest Airlines 0

Qantas 6

United 3

Continental 1

Delta 3

Northwest/KLM 0

American 2

Song 0

AirTran 0

Air Canada 1

Virgin Atlantic 2

Air France 0

LTU 0

China Airlines 0

Japan Airlines 2

British Airways 2

U.S. Airways 2

Air New Zealand 4

Singapore Airlines 5

Easyjet 1

American Eagle

American West

TWA 1

Sun Air 1

Emirates 1

Midwest 1

Korean 1

Asiana 1

Cathay Pacific 3

Hawaiin 1

Buzz 1

Go 1

 

[spicyapple]

Is this a trick question?

 

[imacintel]

Air Canada, westjet.

 

[Xander562]

JET BLUE BABY! they fly out of the little airport thats literally walking distance from my house,

Leather Seats

30 Channels of Direct TV in every seat

ooooohhh yeahhhhh

 

[Peterkro]

This seems a very parochial poll,there's a lot more major airlines than included here.

 

[spicyapple]

It's hard to say which airline I like best since I've never flown on all of them to be able to do a fair comparison, unless I was some rich business traveler. I'll just go with the one I fly the most, and it's not necessarily the one I like the best, but I wouldn't know that, would I?

 

[iGary]

Transatlantic: Virgin, hands down.

U.S.: United or Jet Blue

Pacific: United/Air New Zealand/Qantas

 

[nbs2]

Do I have to pay for my ticket? Then Delta, only because they are better than SW (not by much) and are cheaper than everybody else.

Otherwise, I really have fallen in love with JB and Continental.

 

[spicyapple]

Transatlantic: Virgin, hands down.
U.S.: United or Jet Blue
Pacific: United/Air New Zealand/Qantas

You HATE Southwest Airlines.

 

[mariahlullaby]

I tend to fly Delta because that's what all my SkyMiles are on. Haven't flown much else.

 

[Lyle]

U.S. Airways

 

[Blue Velvet]

Pacific: United/Air New Zealand/Qantas

Good lad.

They do get good reviews though, and my younger sister used to be 1st class cabin crew for ANZ too so mebbe I'm biased.

I haven't flown much in recent years but have always been impressed with Singapore Airlines.

 

[iGary]

Good lad.

They do get good reviews though, and my younger sister used to be 1st class cabin crew for ANZ too so mebbe I'm biased.

I haven't flown much in recent years but have always been impressed with Singapore Airlines.

They do a nice job, which is important when you are stuck in an aluminum can for 14 hours. Admitted I have never used any other airline to Auckland, but they seem good stuff.

All Nippon Airlines to Japan fo sho.

 

[e²Studios]

I fly United or some UAL partner whever i go. I should have enough miles fora vacation to Australia by October, YAY!

Ed

 

[Bern]

I'm not American so I am exposed to more airlines than what is offered in this poll

I prefer QANTAS, they have a proven safety record. I never fly Singapore Airlines anymore as the flight attendants are really ill mannered, and according to one ex-Singapore airline attendant I know they'll spit in your meal if you tick them off.

 

[UKnjb]

Long-haul has to be either Air New Zealand or Singapore Airlines. . Everyone else is so bi-plane. Within Europe, Maersk. Transatlantic has to be Virgin (with the worst, IMO, being Air Canada - from where do they hire those ice-maidens? BA rejects? and Continental).

 

[dansgil]

Air Canada is by far the worst airline on that list. The flight attendants are ALWAYS rude, and they charge to put you on standby!

 

[gauchogolfer]

My miles are with United, but where's EasyJet?

I'm flying from Nice to Tokyo next month on KLM, which will be my first time with them. Any good stories / horror stories ?

 

[Tanglewood]

Heres a list of all the airlines I've used that I can remember: American, TWA, Hawaiian, Aloha, Delta, KLM, American Eagle, America West, and Alitalia

Out of all of these probably about 90% of my travel has been with American though the airline that gave me the best service was probably Hawaiian. (American gets docked points because of their Bistro Bag idea from the late 90s).

I was getting ready to board an early American Airlines flight out of Miami, and they announced that it was going to be “bistro service.” “Please pick up your ‘bistro’ meal from the cart as you board the plane,” they told us.

I honestly wasn't sure what “bistro” meant, but it sounded French,
which I thought was a good sign. French food is pretty tasty, except
for the snails, which I do not believe the French actually eat. I believe
the French sit around their restaurants pretending to eat out of empty
snail shells and making French sounds of enjoyment such as “Yumme!” (literally, “Yum!”). But when foreign tourists order this “delicacy,” the waiters bring them shells that still contain actual unretouched snails, which the tourists eat, causing the French people to duck under their tables and laugh until red wine spurts from their nostrils.

But other than that, French food is pretty good. So I had high hopes when, on my way to the plane, I stopped at the cart and picked up a paper sack containing my “bistro” meal. I was hungry, because I had not eaten breakfast, because I had arrived at the airport one hour early so that, in accordance with airline procedures, I could stand around.

When the plane took off, I opened my “bistro” sack. Here are the items it contained: (1) a container of yogurt, (2) a “breakfast bar” made from compressed dried wood chips, and (3) the greenest, coldest, hardest banana I have ever touched in my life. If I'd had a mallet, I could have pounded it straight into a vampire's heart.

So I didn't eat the banana. Needless to say I also didn't eat the yogurt. My guess is, nobody ever eats the yogurt; at the end of the flight, the airline people just collect all the unused yogurts and put them back into “bistro” sacks for the next flight. There are containers of airline yogurt still in circulation that originally crossed the Atlantic with Charles Lindbergh.

I did eat the “breakfast bar,” because if you're hungry enough, you will eat wood chips. (That's why beavers do it. There is no way they would gnaw on trees if they ever found out about pizza delivery.)

Anyway, the flight was scheduled to go directly to Houston, so finally, after navigating around the sky for a several hours, we landed in: New Orleans. The pilot said there was fog in Houston. No doubt it was manufactured by the Fog Generator, which every modern airport maintains right next to the Banana Freezer.

They didn't let the passengers off the plane in New Orleans, possibly for fear that we would run away. So we just sat there for an hour or so, rustling our “bistro meal” sacks and listening to our stomachs grumble. Here's how bad it got: A woman across the aisle from me finally broke down and ate her yogurt. I bet this really messed up the accounting
when the airline food personnel got ready to re-sack the yogurt for the next flight (“Hey! There's one missing!”).

Anyway, we finally took off again and landed in Houston, where we dropped to our knees and gratefully licked crumbs off the terminal floor. So the story ended happily, except for the nagging question that remained stuck in my mind: Why did the airline call it “bistro service?” When I got home, I looked up “bistro.” According to my dictionary,
it's a French word meaning “a small wine shop or restaurant where wine is served.” The image it conjures up is of a cozy little place on a picturesque little street in Paris, with candle-lit tables for two occupied by lovers kissing, drinking wine, enjoying French food and laughing at snail-eating tourists. Somehow, the airline decided to use this word, of all the words in the world, to describe what was served on my flight.

Why? The answer is: marketing. At some point, American Airlines went to its Marketing Department and said, “We're going to stop serving real food to people, and we need a good name for it.” Marketing people love this kind of challenge. Their motto is: “When life hands you lemons, lie.” And so they held a brainstorming session, probably at a nice French restaurant, and finally, after a lot of wine, they came up with “bistro service,” which sounds a LOT better, from a marketing standpoint, than “a sack of inedible objects.”

Giving things ridiculous names is a key marketing tactic. That's why the gambling industry, when it became concerned that people might think it had something to do with gambling, changed its name to the “gaming” industry, as if people go to Las Vegas to play Capture the Flag.

But I think “bistro service” is even better. It may be the best marketing concept I have seen since back in the 1970s, when McDonald's, which does not wait on your table, does not cook your food to order, and does not clear your table, came up with the with the slogan “We Do It All For You.” With this kind of marketing ingenuity, there is no telling how far we can go. Perhaps some day, when we board our airplane, we will each pick up a box of dirt; this will be called “haute cuisine service.” We will take the box without complaining because we are consumers, and our motto is “moo.”

 

[BlizzardBomb]

For UK to USA, nothing beats Virgin Atlantic.

 

[Queso]

I like QANTAS, but the best airline ever was Sun Air down in South Africa. Every passenger got allocated two adjoining leather seats, all drinks were free and even served whilst the plane taxied, and the checking queues were always tiny. You had to pay, but God was is worth it.

Sadly, no longer with us. When the Rand fell through the floor, their costs went right up and they went bankrupt

 

[kiwi-in-uk]

For long flights (24 hours or so) ...

Emirates (although the Dubai hub has been a bit of a pain while the new terminal is being built)

Cathay



NEVER AGAIN ...

QANTAS International - they are nearly always arrogant and unnecessarily inflexible (Australian domestic is OK)

British Airways - same reason as QANTAS but done with funny accents

Virgin Blue (Australian domestic) - low service level but no cheaper than full service competitor (QANTAS domestic), leather seats

 

[killuminati]

Lufthansa (sp?)

and

KLM

 

[Lau]

I've only mainly flown on budget airlines – Easyjet and Ryanair, and the now obsolete Go and Buzz. For short flights, I'll take what's cheapest and what flies to the airport I need.

I've flown BA a couple of times in the UK, most recently the other weekend cause I had to. It was nice, definitely nicer than budget stuff. When I flew to New York it was on BA and that was nice too, although we were all a bit disappointed because it was originally going to be Virgin, and that sounded dead cool.

As none of these airlines feature in the poll, I voted other. But I suspect that a lot of the ones I've never flown are the coolest. I always feel a bit posh flying BA, so I rather fancy some of the really posh ones.

 

[satty]

Transatlantic: Virgin, hands down.

U.S.: United or Jet Blue

Pacific: United/Air New Zealand/Qantas

In earlier times I flew Air New Zealand; mainly to get to New Zealand. But since the "war on terror" harassment at LA airport, I was forced to change the route and so my new choice is Singapore Airlines. Very good service, hardly any transfer/stop over times in Singapore and a million times nicer transit area than LA.

So nowadays my main travel focus is more on Asia (Singapore, Hong Kong, China last January and hopefully Singapore, China, North Korea and Tibet in October).