Which US airline?

Amp34

Amp34

Amp34

Caporegime
Joined
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Canada
I'm just booking a flight to Central America and the cheapest appear to be with the major US Airlines. I've not heard great things, and never flown with one (only on a code share that ended up as an Air Canada flight) so which one is the best to go for? It'll be cattle class so I'm not expecting much...!

The similar priced options are

KLM And Delta (and just Delta)
United
America Airlines

There is also Air Canada, KLM, BA and Iberia at an extra couple of hundred...

Or are they all so bad I should give up and just settle with the best transit Airport?

Thanks

EDIT: AA, BA and Iberia are part of One world as well so I could in theory collect Avios to go with what I already have...
 
I've found US airlines to be all of a muchness. Continental are my favourites.. they seem to do a bog standard job well, rather than try to do a better job and not always manage like BA seem to be.
 
Delta is pretty bad. I've flown a few transatlantic flights with then in very old 747's, no in seat screens and terrible food.
 
pan am .. were awesome guess that dont help much ..

air tran and hawaiian got good reviews tho internally not sure of others
 
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Delta updated all of their 767s recently, so when I flew last month with them they were much better than several years ago. As you say, they used to have very poor IFE.

One of my flights last year I flew US Airways and I managed to swing an upgrade to first for £350, which was fantastic.
 
I'm flying Delta for five flights in September/October. Going from Heathrow to JFK and Austin, TX to Heathrow again. Got three other internal flights within the States while i'm out there too. They were by far the cheapest, the seat width and leg room all match up to Easy Jet which I find quite comfortable and decent.

All the transatlantic flights now have in-seat entertainment. Delta have upgraded their aircraft 99% now.
 
See if you can get an upgrade to their new Economy comfort on the transatlantic leg, it's only $80 but you get a better seat and a little bit more room.
 
DcD said:
I'm flying Delta for five flights in September/October. Going from Heathrow to JFK and Austin, TX to Heathrow again. Got three other internal flights within the States while i'm out there too. They were by far the cheapest, the seat width and leg room all match up to Easy Jet which I find quite comfortable and decent.

All the transatlantic flights now have in-seat entertainment. Delta have upgraded their aircraft 99% now.
Click to expand...

U .. like?? easyjet

Do they let you get high before getting onboard now?

Mental airline no good :/
 
DcD said:
I'm flying Delta for five flights in September/October. Going from Heathrow to JFK and Austin, TX to Heathrow again. Got three other internal flights within the States while i'm out there too. They were by far the cheapest, the seat width and leg room all match up to Easy Jet which I find quite comfortable and decent.

All the transatlantic flights now have in-seat entertainment. Delta have upgraded their aircraft 99% now.
Click to expand...

They definitely didn't as of about 2 months ago and about this time ladt year coming back from Detroit unless I just got unlucky :(
 
Amp34 said:
I'm just booking a flight to Central America and the cheapest appear to be with the major US Airlines. I've not heard great things, and never flown with one (only on a code share that ended up as an Air Canada flight) so which one is the best to go for? It'll be cattle class so I'm not expecting much...!

The similar priced options are

KLM And Delta (and just Delta)
United
America Airlines

There is also Air Canada, KLM, BA and Iberia at an extra couple of hundred...
Click to expand...

KLM/Delta - Certainly among the better operators, their newer planes are nice if you're lucky and I've never had problems with them in 15+ flights in the last year. They certainly still have planes that lack "normal" functions such as in-flight entertainment etc, they are phasing out slowllllyyy..

United - I have the most miles with these guys so I would be biased in saying they are great.

AA- Avoid at all costs, both domestically and internationally they are horrible.

BA- Not flown too much with them but they never appear particuarly customer-friendly. Meh.

I don't think you can go wrong with Delta or United. Because they are American market leaders you also get better choices of hubs and routes.
 
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+1 for Continental. Used them a few years for a number if flights to the US, Belize and Cancun. Good solid reliable service. Was very happy with them and they we're also very reasonably priced at the time.
 
I do about 150k miles a year on United and overall I'm pretty damn pleased with them. There have been a few hiccups in recent months due to the merger with Continental but most of these seem to have been sorted. You also have the option of buying up to Economy+ if you want extra legroom. I do feel that as a frequent flyer they don't value my business as much as they did pre-merger, however I had a status match to Executive Platinum on American Airlines and I'll be trying them out in a few weeks. I have only ever flown AA as a non-elite (hate that term) before and I wasn't impressed. This is irrelevant to you though if you don't intend to shoot for elite status.

I have flown a lot on Delta, AA, UA/CO and Air Canada and IMO United offers the best all round package for Y class.

If you fly through IAH you'll have access to quite a few Central American destinations with higher frequency of flights giving you more options in the event of irregular operations.
 
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DcD said:
I'm flying Delta for five flights in September/October. Going from Heathrow to JFK and Austin, TX to Heathrow again. Got three other internal flights within the States while i'm out there too. They were by far the cheapest, the seat width and leg room all match up to Easy Jet which I find quite comfortable and decent.

All the transatlantic flights now have in-seat entertainment. Delta have upgraded their aircraft 99% now.
Click to expand...


Yeah cos flying easy jet transatlantic would be a joy :rolleyes:
 
Vtec9k said:
Delta is pretty bad. I've flown a few transatlantic flights with then in very old 747's, no in seat screens and terrible food.
Click to expand...

Interesting as I flew KLM/Delta (same company) in Feb (LHR - MSP) and both there and back they had full individual IFE and pretty good food (free wine and beers too), they also didn't use a 747 it was a 767. The type of aircraft will depend on the route anyway as far as I'm aware. Leg room was fairly good although not brilliant, luckily we had fairly empty flights there and back so could stretch across loads of seats if we wanted, the air hostesses actually told us to. :)

http://www.seatguru.com/

Will give you more information on the aircraft and what IFE there is.

BA is meant to be brilliant though from what I hear (this could just be BA Club).
 
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Detroit_Waves said:
I only ever fly Virgin, however I highly recommend them.
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I'd never fly Virgin again unless they offered a significant price advantage, our flights to India with them a few years ago were a disgrace.

We've flow United loads to and from the states and never had a problem with them decent food decent entertainment and nice enough staff even the day after the liquid bombs thing broke they were pretty friendly!

BA I avoid where possible after some truly shocking flights, the standard of service food etc just doesn't match rivals allthough we will be flying with them this summer as they offered great value on our route too and from South America.
 
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