It’s no surprise that most folks hate flying.
I mean, what’s to like? You’re stuck in cramped quarters, virtually rubbing elbows with strangers without enough room to pass your neighbor to get to the bathroom, which is smaller than most closets (and some refrigerators). The food is barely passable. The entertainment isn’t as good as the games on your iPad. And the entire time you’re just hoping you don’t catch avian flu.
Last year the U.S. Department of Transportation reported a spike in passenger complaints for 2008. In fact, it was the second-worst year in the past seven for consumer complaints to the industry’s federal regulator.
Fliers complained about everything from airline delays to lost luggage to a lack of empathy on the part of airlines staff when a crisis — even a personal one — occurs.
And lately the complaints have been geared toward added costs such as paying extra for check-in luggage.
To top it off, several airlines just announced it was eliminating or reducing rows in their first-class cabins. Prices will likely remain — but the benefits will be far less than before.
So what’s a desperate traveler to do?
The problem is we can’t do much. Airplane transportation is the fastest way to get anywhere. So you have to put up or shut up, as the saying goes. There’s no way around it.
I can’t say that I enjoy flying, either, especially when you’re traveling from Honolulu to Paris — with stopovers in San Francisco and Minneapolis — en route to a wedding that requires another three hours on a train once we landed in France. We spent a total of 20 hours in the air. That’s way too long for any human with an appetite for real food.
But we did notice a big difference between domestic (Delta Airlines) and foreign airlines (Air France):
• The seats on Air France were noticeably bigger and the area more spacious
• The food on Air France was decidedly better. Portions bigger and — get this — we didn’t have to pay extra for it!
• The pillows — I know, sounds petty — were actually better on Air France, too. It makes a difference in Hour 10, trust me.
Anyone else notice a difference between domestic and foreign service? Anyone actually like flying? Got any alternatives? I’m all ears!
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To read all of Cat’s blogs, visit www.nonstophonolulu.com/thedailydish. Follow Cat on Twitter @thedailydish or send her an e-mail at [email protected].
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31 Comments
Living in Hawaii has its advantages – sun, surf, a melting pot of fuud. There’s also disadvantages such as the need to fly to everywhere since we are in the middle of the Pacific.
I actually don’t mind flying. Most likely because I fly enough every year to sit in the spacier section of the plane where I don’t have to worry about the person in front easing the seat back and cramping “my space”.
I haven’t flow Internationally since prior to 9/11 but friends that do all comment that they rather have the service and facilities of the foreign air carriers over the domestic carriers. Like you they like the food and the seating but what they go on to mention is that the Flight Attendants on the foreign carriers are much more friendly and service oriented than their domestic counterparts.
Flying Japan airlines is almost like flying first class on a US airline. The seat is not as large but its pretty roomy. The food is decent and the flight crew, although they don’t speak english, they are great. They always seem to be offering something to drink and they are always busy. I notice on the US flights the crew seems to rush out the meal so they can cruise in the galley.
@Masako YES! JAL and ANA are my favorite airlines, for sure. Best service and best food!
I like to fly. It seems to me that the domestic carriers who service Hawaii use seniority rules to select the staff assigned to mainland / Hawaii routes. The more experienced attendants tend to be less friendly… not always though….probably because they are “over it” from all the years of trying to accommodate requests from travelers.
@Eric Actually not “seniority rules to select the staff assigned to mainland / Hawaii routes” but the domestic Flight Attendants bid on their routes based upon Seniority status. Therefore the more senior FA’s will always get the routes of choice leaving the junior FA’s to get the less desirable routes like those 1 hour hops from city to city.
@harrycovair Yes, good point.
most times when i flew on a foreign airline the service and food were better than on our domestic airlines. the only exception i recall is flying on Air China where i felt like was on a domestic airline. so, i agree with Masako.
I fly whatever Vacations Hawaii puts me in….unfortunately it’s Omni. Basically you sit in each others lap and they give you bread and water. Might I add that the magazines are over 6 months old to boot. Hahahaha
@MoOgooGuypAN I flew Omni once and got stuck in the row in front of the bathroom. We couldn’t even recline our seats!
Hello Cat!
I hate flying, it just takes to long. After the first hour, I’m going nuts already. It’s uncomfortable and the food is lousy.
JAL is the best airlines I been on, a little more leg room, the food is not to bad and the flight attendents come around during the whole flight to offer beverages.
While civilian flights do leave a lot to be desired at times, it’s absolute heaven in comparison to military flights. They’re noisy, very uncomfortable (most of the time you’re sitting in nylon sling seats), jammed and crammed with bodies and/or gear and cargo, few to no windows and your bathroom is usually a chemical toilet with a curtain around it. Sometimes you do a hot load/unload (engines running, they just open the ramp and out/in you go, grabbing a bag in the process). Sometimes you have your rucksack sitting in your lap for the whole flight. For short hops it’s okay. The sling seats are good enough for a nap and earplugs take care of the noise. But try flying like that in a propeller driven cargo plane from here to Oregon or Washington state for 8-9 hours. Then you discover the true meaning of bad flying.
@hikino Isn’t the web seating “sideways” on a MAC flight? Not the normal facing forward in the direction of travel configuration.
@harrycovair In most cases, yes (especially true on the prop driven C-130). For folks not familiar with the configuration, these are nylon bench seats with webbing for your backrest running the length of the cargo bay, on both sides and in the middle, running parallel to the length of the plane. Think of it like a row of park benches facing each other down a long path. Very effective for getting a lot of bodies onboard; not so good for comfort.
But once in a great while, you do score regular airline type seats (mainly on the bigger jet cargo planes or on KC-135s–tanker aircraft–if they’re not hauling cargo) but most of the time these seats face backwards (like the flight attendent seats you see on commercial flights). I’ve only flown facing forward once during a KC-135 ride back from Oregon. I’ve seen that the new C-17 has jump seats built into the walls of the plane and according to my buddies, it isn’t half bad but then again it’s heaven compared to the sling seat.
@harrycovair Also folks, keep in mind that a lot of these military cargo flights fly space available for active duty and retired military folks looking for a cheap hop somewhere. So that means even off duty, or your poor dependents who don’t wear the uniform, also will suffer the indignities I outlined prior. That is, if you get on board; it’s the military version of flying standby like we do on civilian carriers.
I’ve seen it happen on that 8-9 hour prop driven flight to the mainland. We had just enough room to place a young private and his wife on board with us. They were placed up front so that she could use the flight crew’s toilet (which had an actual door) but she suffered right along with us.
I fly rarely, besides the few interisland trips to O’ahu every year, so I don’t have a lot to compare experiences with. However, I just returned to Hilo from a trip to Santa Barbara. The flight arrangements were made at the last moment by a client so I ended up flying on US Airways. Their hub is in Phoenix so it was Hilo to Phoenix to SB so it literally took an entire day (same return route too).
One thing that struck me on the mainland flights was how unfriendly the flight attendants were. I got the impression that they really didn’t like their jobs and wanted to be anywhere else but on that plane. They rolled their eyes and grimaced more often than they smiled (never). In their defense, though, I did see a few passengers behave questionably.
Curiously, too, on almost every plane I boarded, someone was sitting in my seat and I had to direct them to their proper seat assignment. Weird. Reading row numbers and seat letters with a picture of the window can’t be that challenging, can it? On the Phoenix-Honolulu flight a man in my seat sat next to his little daughter in the middle and his wife at the window. When I approached him he quickly said “I’d like to sit with my family so you can sit in my seat” which was next to the window several rows back. It wasn’t even a question. It was as if he were allowing me to sit in his seat. Without apologizing, I promptly told him I paid extra for that seat. (An extra $25 for the aisle over a window seat!) He reluctantly returned to his proper seat and unsuccessfully tried to coax the two adjacent passengers to swap seats with his wife and daughter. I didn’t feel too bad for them only because 1) he didn’t bother to ask me for the seat and 2) I wasn’t going to pay $25 for someone else to sit in my seat. Now if his was an aisle seat, and he had asked politely, I most likely would have switched.
@hawaii2000 I flew US Airways once to Phoenix for work. We were one of two direct night flights to Phoenix, and this was the day of the Pro Bowl. At check in, they were already asking me if I wanted to give up my seat (they were overbooked) but I said no when they couldn’t get me out on the second flight. Many people came directly from the game which ended only a couple of hours before so security was crazy long and slow.
We were boarded onto a 757, which was smaller than what I normally fly. So already it was more narrow in seats and aisle; and almost everyone was on the larger side and we flew full. It was not a fun time. The flight crew looked grim when they saw the situation. And man, we didn’t wait. Soon as everyone was onboard, we were off. Pilot made speed racer to make schedule (we actually came in early). Flight crew didn’t show movie or anything, just killed the lights almost immediately. Lucky for everyone, everyone was too tired/drunk/sunburned to care and immediately slept. No more US Airway for me after that!
I used to fly a lot to the mainland and within the continental U.S. The flights within the US were not pleasant. Air crews were not very accommodating…it really seemed like “work” for them.
The flights to Hawaii were somewhat better. It was nice if you had a “local” crew.
My best experience was flying on Japan Airlines. So much more pleasant than the US carriers. The flight attendants were accommodating, courteous and much more professional, something lacking with many U.S. airlines.
From ’98 to ’06 I flew about 100,000 miles a year. I flew strictly United for the mileage club and flew first class about 80% of the time (always using upgrade points, or courtesy upgrades at the counter). I used the express check-in line, boarded first, deplaned first, etc. I LOVED it. After I closed my Austin TX satellite office and scaled back on my west coast involvements in ’06, I went down to barely flying 20K per year and have been flying coach and the cheapest airlines ever since… don’t like it so much now (haha)!
The best part of FC was the meals. And of course the after meal service, as drinks and snacks were always available throughout the flight, free of course. And for a 6′-3″ guy, I loved stretching out in those big assed seats as well! My favorite was the upper deck first-class cabins on 747s… but most airlines have retired those behemoths now.
As for coach, I must say that my two trips on British Airways were über-nice! The flight attendants fell over themselves to help you, the movie selection had over 30 fairly current movies to choose from, and the food and booze were still free! Also, flying non-stop from SF or LA to London is nicer than layovers in Chicago, etc.
However, their “on-timeness” left MUCH to be desired. In ’08 I sat in Heathrow ALL DAY to catch a little flight to Budapest. I only had two days there, so one went in the toilet. Another time my connection from Rome to Heathrow was two hours late. We all had to RUN through the gates with airport escorts clearing the way… my luggage didn’t make it however and I had to go to a wedding in L.A. the very next morning… I had to wear my jeans from the flight and borrow a shirt. I guess they had to drop the ball somewhere.
I fly about two times a year between Europe and Hawaii, and to be honest, I only dislike the jetlag and the duration lol.. the flying itself takes long, depending on the route usually anywhere between 20 and 24 hours, and in Europe it usually takes about a week for me to get into the new rhythm.
Normally I fly with Delta or KLM (since I usually go to Amsterdam for family visits) or with one of the other Delta partners (miles 😉 lol) but my preference so far is with Delta.
Food on domestic flights is indeed something you will need to pay for, but with Delta you will also get it for free once you fly international. It is the same with the European carriers, you will have to pay on most of them for food and drinks if you do a European trip, but when you get out of Europe, it becomes all free. The seats you talked about are also bigger, and most of the other things are also better on the international Delta flights 🙂
Funny you took the HNL-SFO-MSP route, we took the exact same route a day before you.. coming back we will go straight to San Francisco… 11+ hours on a single flight… kind of not looking forward to that one, but the upside is that our total trip time is less (about 19 hours (too bad about the long stopover)).
almost everyone agrees that US carriers are the worst. Singapore has a rep as having the best customer service. idk, ’cause i haven’t flown an international carrier since people dressed up to fly. (really, they did).
sometimes i could kick my own ass for eating airplane food, esp if my destination is a city like NYC, NO, KC, or HNL. where great food is only a cab ride from the airport.
people revert to lab rat status once they’re in the air. ever see Ellen Degeneres’ bit about everybody gnawing on their little peanut packets, trying to get them open?
luckily, HNL is only five hours from the west coast. i can be on my best behavior for that long. Hawaiian Air is pretty good as they go. can’t wait for march. i’ll be scooting in over leeward side, chirping tires on the reef runway and making a bee line for Side Street Inn. Miso Chicken! ima tap dat.
Aloha Cat. Agreed. I donʻt travel abroad a lot, but I’d say that my experiences on foreign carries has always been superior to domestic in every way – personnel, cabin comfort & seats, food, etc. Only time I ever got a comp upgrade to first class was on Aer Lingus to Ireland from Newark, and Lord did they spoil us. I just got back from a Sweden/Denmark tip on Continental. No major issues but glad I brought along my AssSaver (butt pillow) because those seats felt like upholstered plywood.
Only negative experience on an international carrier was on Jet Star, Qantas Airlines low-cost branch. I booked on Qantas, and they pulled a switcheroo on us, never said the flight would be on Jet Star. Confusion at airport, they gave our plane to an earlier scheduled flight, we had exit the gates and go through security again, had to wait four hours for a new plane, terrible food, missed our HNL connection to Hilo, got last seats on last flight home. Worst flight I’ve ever had. And heard from other travelers that it was par for the course for them.
Overall I’d agree, I love seeing new places, have a particular soft spot for Europe and New Zealand, but wish we could teleport there.
I’m in agreement with everyone who believes that the foreign carriers seem to be better than the domestic airlines. I’ve been on JAL to Japan and Korea, Lufthansa and SAS to Europe and for the most part, those airlines treated their passengers like paying customers who deserved their attention and service while in their care. Not so much with the domestic carriers (primarily UAL and Continental) except if you are in business or first class.
One exception to that was a terrific experience on Southwest Airlines. Took a flight from HNL to LAX on UAL and because of a delay we missed our connecting flight on Southwest. UAL basically told us we were SOL but the Southwest agent went out of his way to make sure we got something to eat, booked us on the next available flight (even looked for alternate airports that we might have been able to fly to), and even helped us with alerting the rental car company that we were delayed. It was no fault of theirs that we missed our flight but this agent went out of his way to help us. If I have the chance, I will use Southwest again.
I actually like the flying experience and idea of getting on a plane and being in another city in a matter of hours (sometimes many hours). It’s the damn airport (read security) process you have to go through first. Luckily, it’s not too bad at HNL, but get to a larger airport (LAX, Chicago), then it’s a PITA. We had a 1 1/2 hour connection in Chicago on our way back from Paris, and we damn near missed our flight. We got through immigration and customs and to the domestic terminal in about 45 minutes. We then spent the next 40 minutes going through a relatively short security line, the TSA agents were just dreadfully slow. We made it to our plane, as they were calling our names.
I’ve come to accept the non-free food issue on domestic flights (it wasn’t that good to begin with). I’ll grab something at the airport and bring it on board so I don’t have to pay the exorbitant airline prices. Even the international fare (on US airlines) has deteriorated over the past few years. I haven’t flown on an International carrier in about 5 or 6 years, but I do remember it to be a much better experience.
i don’t think u.s. carriers are the worst. have u ever flown aeroflot?
best airline meal: bibimbap in coach on kal. in a porcelain bowl. w/ kimchee on the side in foil-sealed packs. i scarfed my bibimbap and asked for another, but the stewardess only stared at me and said no.
I’ve always said that International Business is way better than domestic first. The few times (like 2) that I flew a three class aircraft was way better than all the trips that i got upgraded to domestic first.
I accidently got upgraded to International first once but that was such a short hop (chicago to san francisco) it was a waste.
Since the airlines (united and american) charge a copay for upgrading, I no longer upgrade unless they give it to me free but since the list is so long for so few seats, it’s moot if I’ll ever get an upgrade.
At 6’2″ and 200 I am a little over the average size of your typical flyer. With this in mind I usually shoot for exit row aisle or window but prefer aisle. I used to get this every flight because I flew 100+ per year and was up in the rankings on FF programs. Life is different now. No special privilege so I have to book way in advance to get an aisle seat. It gets really bad when I am sandwiched between two people way larger than I am… and it happens a lot these days. My suspicion is that now that two more carriers have been absorbed it will get worse. Already heard rumblings about putting seats closer together. But in reality I could handle it a lot easier if the food was free and it tasted good. I love to travel and look forward to the day when I can board a ship, my own, and travel places where I can take my sweet time getting there.
CAT,
I agree with you. I am still waiting for that “Oceanic” flight to land, I think it is “Lost”. I feel like Tom Hanks as I am stuck in this “Terminal”. I think the pilot on this flight is Kareem Abdul Jabar?
Just to add to this thread. If you want any information on your carrier’s plane (757, 767, A319, A320, etc.) you can always check
https://seatguru.com
Choose your carrier, then choose the plane type, then roll your cursor over the seat and it’ll give the +/- of your choice of seat. The good seats are Green, the okay seats are yellow. THE BAD SEATS ARE IN RED!
@harrycovair My mom showed me an article talking about Seat Guru years ago and it’s been a blessing ever since. So when I travel, either for business or pleasure, I have two windows open–one on the airline website for the reservation, and the other on Seat Guru so I can pick a good seat.
@harrycovair Also, that site is packed with other types of information as well; if there are power ports on the plane and where, if that particular type of plane is uses strictly for the international routes or domestic travel, if the row is misaligned to the window, etc.
I actually like flying. Call me crazy, but I do. 🙂 I currently live in India as an expat and travel home to Hawaii at least once a year. My route home goes from India to London (10+ hours flying), London to SF or LA (between 9.5-10 hours), then the 4.5-5 hours from the West Coast home to Honolulu. I’d rather fly on the longer-haul flights. For some reason the time goes by faster – maybe it’s because you can sleep longer without being interrupted for food service; or the fact that the movie selection is pretty decent; but I find it easier than the “shorter” 5 hours from California to Hawaii flights.