I’m planning on going to the states next year to visit relatives and wondering who to fly with.
I’m a fairly infrequent flyer and have always used BA in the past. Given all the strike disruptions of recent years I’m not wanting to risk flying with BA this time (also needing to drug his milk is a faff… ha ha, I am funny).

I’ve been looking at Virgin Airways however their prices are considerably more than other airlines (although similar to BA). Does anyone have any recommendations or scare stories for United, Continental, KLM, etc?

Cheers,

V

Not much between them TBH – flown Conti, United etc and all much of a muchness. No more or less issues with any. Loyalty to an airline rarely pays back. You’ll be trying to sleep for most of the trip anyway!

I would continue to fly with BA, with all the people we have flown with they are by far the best. We flew home BA from America in March when they were striking and they were brilliant, extra food vouchers etc. When BA strike it’s always the local and European flights that get cancelled they leave the World flights alone.

When BA strike it’s always the local and European flights that get cancelled they leave the World flights alone

Hadn’t realised that. 🙂

Air New Zealand. Best airline I have ever flown with.

I done hundreds of flights with just about all airlines over the last 10 years, and rate BA consistently the best, although I have not flown Virgin. Continental and United are IME truly awful although I have mostly used them within the US.

Flew KLM to Montreal earlier in the year – OK except the aisle seats have boxes for the entertainment systems taking up 50% of your leg room. Air France always awful but were OK coming back from Montreal because I got upgraded.

BA should be low risk now. The disputes were about the pension scheme which IIRC correctly is now sorted

I went with Lufthansa – customer service is unbelievably bad, seriously, it takes a lot to make Ryanair look good, but they managed. Allowing me to book a seat on a flight that had already been cancelled was the best.
That said, on-board service was fine, food was excellent, beds were comfy and stewardesses where not exactly eye candy, were models of teutonic efficiency. Metal cutlery as well, which came as a bit of a surprise – I guess terrorists and hi-jackers probably don’t fly business class.

ANZ is OK, but the best airline in the world is Singapore Airlines. By a country mile.

Flew to the states 3 years ago with British Midland and they were ace highly recomended and cheap as well.

If you are in pleb class at the back ( and I always am) the Airline makes very little difference. My experience of pond-junping about 20 times with BA, AA, United, Canadian and Continental suggests that they all practice “feed em and **** off”… What can be different is what seat-back entertainment system you have. For instance – usually better to be on a 777 than a 757 with AA.

The best service I have ever had long haul was with Garuda… for Europe/US based airlines the more senior the cabin crew are, it seems the more they get to choose to fly long haul, but often they are also fatter, grumpier and lazier. Personal opinion. Flack awaited.

The best service I have ever had long haul was with Garuda..

Ho Ho this is too true, I’ve had great service on Garuda, but seriously they are the least safer airline in the world.. At one stage they were banned from European Airspace, I think they still might be. Wikipedia says they are allowed back in now..

Thanks for all the comments, all very useful.

Didn’t mention before, but I’ll have a 4 year old with me so in-flight entertainment could make all the difference 🙂

You might want to look at Seatguru and pick the best seats you can – usefiul advice in trms of noise and extra legroom

We fly ling haul every year with kids and virgin every time. Great entertainment on board. If they did our route ld go Singapore.

I have flown Virgin a couple of times to LA, the food was dire/slop/unedible (I tried to send mine back and they thought I was joking), but the movies were good.

Air NZ has fantastic food, even better wine, but the movies tend not to be the latest releases.

Depends where you are going and who you can choose from but I will never fly United again and Continental aren’t far behind in terms of uselessness!

American are ok but Virgin and BA are much better. Air NZ if you are flying to LA though

I wouldn’t bother with KLM or Air France – the saving just isn’t worth a) changing in Paris and b) the terrible service.
Virgin Atlantic if you can; BA otherwise. United hasn’t been terrible in my experience, but YMMV

Any US based airline I’ve flown with seem to have grumpy (rude!) staff and old planes. Virgin are good, as are BA.

Yes thats true about US airlines – the staff seem ill tempered. I flew United once to Hawaii and made a crack about the door being closed properly (a flight the year before had the door ripped off above the pacific) OK tasteless but she turned off the food, drink and charm and I reckon would have turned off my air if she could.

Also on United an attendant with a name badge “Baron von Something” (which has to be worth commenting on) so I course I went with “Baron thats an unusual first name” to get the snootiest treatment ever in history on that flight. No laffs at all that lot.

(of course mostly my fault for being a cheeky cow but I was young !)

The only US airlines I’d fly with again are either American Airlines or Northwestern (Air Canada are good if they fly to your location). I’ve flown on most of the major carriers to the US at some time and most are below par. USAir, Delta and United are awful but pretty much everyone else blends in together.

toys19 indeed… a mate who was in Air Traffic Control thought I was being brave flying Garuda… only told me later 😕

I done hundreds of flights with just about all airlines over the last 10 years, and rate BA consistently the best

Agreed.

Best seats are upstairs in the 747, 62A or 62K. I’ve been on a couple of BA flights in First, but would actually prefer to be upstairs in Club in those seats.

I fly Virgin as they just shade BA in terms of price & there isnt much between them in quality. United have the worst CC (as bad as Pan Am at their lowest), not sure about AA either..

The disputes were about the pension scheme which IIRC correctly is now sorted

I think they are still threatening to strike over the staff who lost their travel perks – worth checking!

Other thing I jsut though is are you flying bikes? That will make a MASSIVE difference as to how much and what you can fly. In a nutshell when we flew BA to Denver this summer I spent hours looking at airlines prices and weight limits, BA won by miles. Also food on BA is edible and a few meals I’ve had have been quite tasty! Although the freezer cold wet breakfast bap was rank but they can’t get everything right I guess!

Do not under any circumstances fly KLM. Not enough time to name all the reasons.

Stick with B.A imo.

Dude,

Where from and where to? UK’s got a few airports and US a few more. Travelling with nippers you should pay extra to avoid messing around doing daft transfers. As correspondents have said if it’s Heathrow to LA you get to choose Air NZ. From Manchester and other ‘regional’ airports you can fly direct to a fair few US destinations.

Had 2 bad experiences with Virgin flights to USA, Air New Zealand very good though (nice wine selection)and BA been ok.

Back of seat entertainment is great till it crashes and they can’t reboot it. (both flights with Virgin) No alternative entertainment available and very bored both ways.

Do Emirates do your route? Went to Oz with them and they were great.

Also worth noting, if you will be acompanied by your bike, they have the largest economy-class weight limit for baggage (30kg)

Not KLM or Air France!! No matter what. especially Air France. anyone who flies even a bit regularly will have an Air France horror story.

Qatar and Emirates have been the recent up and comers, had great service and heard great things about both.

Not and Never PIA

Thanks all for your comments.

Just to answer a few Qs;
– Flying Heathrow to San Francisco
– No bikes in tow 🙁
– Planning to fly direct – 11hrs is more than enough as it is!

Currently thinking I’ll bite the bullet and pay that bit more for Virgin than dabble with the US airlines (don’t think Air NZ do that route).

I fly around 250,000 miles a year and never, ever book with a US airline anymore. I’ve tried them all, mainly because they are cheaper than European operators to the US, but they were all equally bad.

Always fly long haul West with Lufthansa now, and long haul East with Singapore, Qatar or Emirates.

Flown a couple of times with Virgin to LA and SFO and would do so again if Lufthansa wasn’t an option.

I fly to the US a lot and BA are easily the best. We ended up flying with AA recently as they have the daytime flight slots which work out much better with the toddler, and they are just rubbish by comparison. Rude staff, rubbish on board entertainment and bugger all facilities for babies. No bassinets, no baby food on the plane, they aren’t even allowed to serve you food at the wrong times if your kid’s been sleeping and missed the meal etc etc etc (although one time an attendant pitied us and broke the rules, to the shock of his colleagues). They don’t even have lap seatbelts.

Oh and don’t get me started on bikes – $150 each way for a bike on AA, free on BA!

BA on the other hand will do anything to help you out on the plane as long as they have the facility, and are really nice about it. One thing though – their website doesn’t allow you to book a separate seat for a kid under 2, you have to phone them up and do it, and they will waive the 2% fee or whatever it is for phone bookings.

Verses on that route, I think your only direct choices will be BA, Virgin and United. Just go BA or Virgin not United

One thing to keep an eye on with BA is the type of aircraft. SFO is normally a 747 – on which you will be guaranteed the AVOD entertainment system meaning you can watch what you want when you want (assuming it’s actually working…). Some of the 777 have also been updated, but many are still running the old 12 or 18 channel continuous cycle systems.

I can’t comment on Virgin.

Strike-wise it all seems to have calmed down. During the last strike BA worked fairly hard to keep all their high-revenue long-haul routes serviced, but often by reducing the service to 1 flight instead of 2.

Virgin to SFO this time of year is the Airbus which is a better plane than the 747 – modern & a hell of a lot quieter too..

All booked now.

Flying with Virgin on a 747.

Thanks for all the comments/recommendations.

My credit card hurts 🙁

Good call. Would have been my choice on that route. Enjoy your trip!!

can’t be bothered to read all of the above, but being a very patriotic american and fairly frequent flier, may I recommend staying as far away as you can from american owned airlines. The planes are usually dingy, and staff have for the last few years concentrated on (perceived) security at the expense of cusomer service. The whole experience usually ends up being quite unpleasant. The european airlines I’ve flown with, particularly those that fly airbusses which for some reason I prefer (they feel more airy, I guess), are much better.

In my opinion, it is worth to pay a bit extra to fly direct. It’s a long trip already, and adding another couple of hours with the added pain of worrying about connecting is terrible.

Virgin atlantic have an undeservedly good reputation — I have found them a pain to deal with, and no payoff in terms of quality.

So my recommendation is a direct, non-Virgin, non-American flight on an airbus, although I usually end up using BA even though they fly Boeings… Have always had quality service from them.

EDIT: ha! had I read the thread I would have known that you’ve already chosen. Oh well, maybe this will help someone else…

I use Virgin from Heathrow for west coast and BMI from Manchester for east coast.

US carriers are shocking.

I flew Virgin LHR-SFO with bikes in October, well it was an AirNZ ticketed flight but its VS0019 which is the Virgin flight. Was OK, bikes free.