Airline advice

manic111

manic111

manic111

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I'm flying to Tokyo at the end of September, and the airlines within my budget are KLM, Air China, or Turkish Airlines.

Does anyone have any experience of them, and if so, which would you recommend? I've only flown KLM short haul, and presume for longer flights they're a little more comfortable/less rowdy. Cheers!
 
Out of those 3 KLM but you are picking the least worst rather than the best, really.

Is there no other choice? These are all going to be indirect flights.
 
From the looks of things I have no direct flights available (I'm planning on flying back from Osaka, which may be why).

The cheapest "decent" airline is Emirates, but they're the best part of £200 more expensive than Turkish, which I'm a bit loathe to pay.
 
manic111 said:
Does anyone have any experience of them, and if so, which would you recommend? I've only flown KLM short haul, and presume for longer flights they're a little more comfortable/less rowdy. Cheers!
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KLM often "codeshare" for longer flights (and some local hops) so you might have a varied experience - I've not found them too bad a bit basic but so far always been a professional and clean service if minimalistic.
 
manic111 said:
The cheapest "decent" airline is Emirates, but they're the best part of £200 more expensive than Turkish, which I'm a bit loathe to pay.
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I've never flown Emirates but they're very well regarded. If the difference is £200 it'll be well worth it for a long haul.
 
Get the cheapest one with decent flight/stopover time.

All major airlines are in reality pretty much the same. The extra inch of leg room one airline may have over another is in reality negligible, airline food is hit and miss depending on whether you like the meals being served etc. Better to fly the least amount of time, leave/get there at reasonable times (whenever that is for you) and have the shortest reasonable stopover (or a stopover long enough to leave the airport.

Certainly not worth £200 going emirates than any other. That said I may consider one airline over the other if they fly 787s on that route, but not £200 worth.
 
Rroff said:
KLM often "codeshare" for longer flights (and some local hops) so you might have a varied experience...
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You could try looking the flight numbers up OP to see if this is the case.

I'd go for the cheapest tbh, but I seem to have the exact opposite opinion of Scam.

The difference is going to be things like legroom, seats, food... tbh in absolute terms those are all going to be dreadful anyway, the marginal difference to my satisfaction is a lot less than £200 worth. A week afterwards I'd be a lot happier with £200 in the bank than the memory of having 1 inch more leg room (and still being squished into the seat).
 
I'd spend the extra £200 and fly Emirates, there is a reason why they have been voted airline of the year for 2016. I'll be flying to Australia in sept with Emirates and with past experiences of flying Emirates. They most definitely deserve their airline of year award for this year.
 
It is not worth £200 extra to fly indirect economy with Emirates versus indirect economy with KLM.

Won't the Emirates flight be noticeably longer anyway? Dubai is hardly en-route to Tokyo whereas Amsterdam isn't a massive detour.

Edit: Yes, its ridiculous. It's almost 20 hours via Dubai whereas it's about 13 indirect via AMS!!

I wouldn't even pick Emirates for this if they were cheaper on that point alone, let alone spending 200 quid more.
 
If you're going to spend the extra 200, might be worth trying to upgrade on the KLM flight day of. Always a ton cheaper if seats are available.
 
KLM, but buy the Economy Comfort seat after booking. Its reasonable value and more private and more space.
 
Amp34 said:
Get the cheapest one with decent flight/stopover time.

All major airlines are in reality pretty much the same. The extra inch of leg room one airline may have over another is in reality negligible, airline food is hit and miss depending on whether you like the meals being served etc. Better to fly the least amount of time, leave/get there at reasonable times (whenever that is for you) and have the shortest reasonable stopover (or a stopover long enough to leave the airport.

Certainly not worth £200 going emirates than any other. That said I may consider one airline over the other if they fly 787s on that route, but not £200 worth.
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This, basically. Flying long haul in economy sucks, I always just go for the cheapest option and accept that it's going to be horrible. My next flight back to Europe has a 20 hour stopover in Shanghai each way, so plenty of time to go out and do something, but that was purely by chance that they were also the cheapest flights (tpe > fco, lhr > tpe, £420, can't complain).
 
Feef said:
This, basically. Flying long haul in economy sucks, I always just go for the cheapest option and accept that it's going to be horrible. My next flight back to Europe has a 20 hour stopover in Shanghai each way, so plenty of time to go out and do something, but that was purely by chance that they were also the cheapest flights (tpe > fco, lhr > tpe, £420, can't complain).
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Depends a bit on the plane - 747 never again, some of the Airbuses aren't terrible though does depend quite a bit on the seat you get.
 
I still think it makes little difference - I'm not huge, 6'2 or so, but an extra inch or two in front of me or beside me doesn't make it any less of a horrible experience. I'm still sat in a seat for 11 hours.

The only "nice" flight I had was flying pvg > lhr when BA asked if it would be ok to put me in an emergency exit row. Yes. Yes, it would be ok. EVA have upgraded me to business class a few times, but not on long haul flights.

Edit/ Actually the best flight I had was doh-bkk in the middle of the night with only a handful of people on the plane, everyone had their own row of seats to sleep on :p
 
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I've just been to Tokyo, flew with Air France who codeshare with KLM. It was 'fine', flew on a 777-200ER (they have some 777-300ERs too).
 
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