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Everything to do with flying today is a rip off. Priority boarding for instance, what happens when everyone has bought priority boarding? And what about the price of drinking water? they confiscate your water at security and then make no provision at all for drinking water. Every airport should provide fresh drinking water fountains. Luton airport charges to drop off passengers and makes a non refundable charge for the use of their luggage trolleys. At Luton airport one can also buy ones way into priority security,, could this be why the non- priority is made deliberately slow? Flying as a means of getting from A to B is the most expensive, degrading, soul destroying way to travel. I totally agree with the headline, treated like cattle by po faced airport and airline personnel, and to rub salt in the wounds, are ripped off at every conceivable opportunity. Unfortunately, for the majority it is the only way to travel long distances, even those who can afford the extortionate First Class prices still have to endure the airport terminal nightmare until they can board the plane and get their luxury seats and service.

The regular, really exspensive airlines aren't much better, I heard a rumour theare talking about reducing leg room back to what they had it a few years ago when it was a hell of a lot cheeper to fly.

After traveling to and from London every day on good old British rail and having to suffer standing and overcrowding, plus late arrivals no aircon in summer no heating in winter. Air Travel is luxury. At least there are toilets on a plane. On the old BR rolling stock there was not any and if there was a points failure of which there were many and you need a 'P' it could become very stressful. Then there was the lack of facilities at the stations so by getting off a train did not always ease the problem (Toilets often locked because of vandals). So please don't moan about air travel.

As for being treated like rubbish it is my experience if you are nice to them they are nice to you. :Handshake:I have seen airport staff putting up with some diabolical language over the past years. Plus if you have had good service from the cabin crew have you ever said thank you, or a nice comfortable flight said thank you to the Pilot? I have..... and in writing.

Yes Tony I have said thank you to the staff but not very often in fact perhaps only twice in my life because that is all that was warranted in my experience.

cowshed-sarah wrote:

Yes Tony I have said thank you to the staff but not very often in fact perhaps only twice in my life because that is all that was warranted in my experience.

Totally agree here. We have had the rude one's as well, but a letter of complaint is the way forward there with the persons name and date and flight number. But we have had more good than bad. But my comparison is mainly towards Rail. I was stuck on a BR train to London one day which stopped in the middle no where for 8 hours with no Toilets heating food, nothing in the middle of January. There was no information and as I remember a few very angry people. Its not a competition but at least if the planes are delayed you stay in fairly comfortable places with access to a hot drink. Our plane was canceled once in Sofia due to bad weather in London we stayed in a hotel overnight and claimed back the hotel cost. Which we got no arguments for. You would never guess the airline (Easy Jet). For the situation as described above with BR we got nothing not even a sorry on a bill board in the station the next day.

Air travel is quick but does have its pit falls, high cost, waiting times etc

It's interesting what you say here about BR but this is about the poor quality of service that the airlines give us all, you may have been very lucky in getting a response but I do know of someone wrote a letter of complaint and didn't even receive a reply let alone an apology, as for being nice to them and it be returned I disagree and lets be honest we are the customers and should be made to feel important and not treated like an inconvenience which a lot of airline staff do. From my own experience I would agree that most airlines don't really give a damn about the passengers and only see their profession as a duty/job and for some people this could put them off flying forever. To draw a comparison between Rail travel and travelling in a plane is a none starter as far as I'm concerned because most people only travel up and down the country in a train whereas in a plane some of us have to travel the world over so the care of passengers on any plane should be that of a 5 star hotel regardless to cost. Rant over.

Hope you are feeling better now, sallyann..I can understand totally. As a retired airline pilot [among other things] I could tell you some stories..do you know what passengers are known as in the industry? Even during 'customer service' seminars, passengers were always described as SLF...self loading freight! It's a very common term, used around the world, as is BOS..bums on seats and PITA..pains in the a**e.

This was your captain speaking...

Thank you Kirk

This was your captain speaking.
At least you are speaking, Some of the flights I have been on we didn't even know we had a captain, and we had to look out of the window to find out if we were at 35,000feet or still on the runway

As for tony making a comparison between air travel and rail travel I see no logic in that what so ever. May I suggest that a new topic is introduced to cover rail travel and experiences in perhaps the UK and Bulgaria, what do you think, it could be quite interesting

I guess you get what you pay for. I use Cyprus airways when I fly to Cyprus with my kids to see family. Yes, the tickets are probably a little more expensive than budget airlines, but they really make sure the kids are looked after (as well as having more leg room and bigger seats in economy) As we went out on a night flight, my kids were wearing jumpers out there, but the cabin crew still came and made sure all children on the flight were given a blanket and pillow each, without anyone asking, and then gave them out to adults that asked.

willowsend wrote:

This was your captain speaking.
At least you are speaking, Some of the flights I have been on we didn't even know we had a captain, and we had to look out of the window to find out if we were at 35,000feet or still on the runway

As for tony making a comparison between air travel and rail travel I see no logic in that what so ever. May I suggest that a new topic is introduced to cover rail travel and experiences in perhaps the UK and Bulgaria, what do you think, it could be quite interesting

Thanks for that willow. But we are talking about value for money at the end of the day, and of course customer service and not being ripped off. The only way you can check this is by making comparisons, in experience and also to compare against competitors. But at the end of the day you do have a choice 'Take it or leave it'. In other words go by Plane or take a train, but then again you could walk

Hope you enjoyed your flight with us today sallyann. Might be a good idea to have a separate thread started..it's usually me who gets into trouble for going off topic.

I'm going to take a chance on getting into trouble again..flying back from my villa in Ibiza with a charter company in 2002..bumpy sort of landing at Manchester..captain on PA apologises and states ' this was the first time we have tried the 'auto land' function on this aircraft..hope you enjoyed it!

True story!!

bgbazz wrote:

Hope you enjoyed your flight with us today sallyann. Might be a good idea to have a separate thread started..it's usually me who gets into trouble for going off topic.

I'm going to take a chance on getting into trouble again..flying back from my villa in Ibiza with a charter company in 2002..bumpy sort of landing at Manchester..captain on PA apologises and states ' this was the first time we have tried the 'auto land' function on this aircraft..hope you enjoyed it!

True story!!

Been there, done that [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

The first time we flew with Bulgaria Air, the Bulgarian passengers started to cross themselves
before take-off! Did they know something we didn't?
They also clapped politely on landing! [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]