Air Asia-the original low cost airline

Advantages: Clean, cheap, punctual
Disadvantages: Low cost so no extras

...Air Asia are a no frills airline based in South East Asia with connections locally around that region as well as up to China. There are also now flights between Kuala Lumpur and London plus 3 destinations in Australia (The Gold Coast, Melbourne and Perth). I have only flown with Air Asia around the South East Asia region and so cannot comment on their long haul services. The range of destinations within Asia is very broad with hundreds of connections, including many to different islands of Indonesia and into Burma (Myanmar). Kuala Lumpur is the hub with Bangkok a secondary so these have the broadest connections. In terms of prices Air Aisia certainly live up to their name of being a cheap airline-one way prices for most short routes are around £20 taxes included and you can check on luggage up to 15kg without paying extra. It is also...

flyingllamas 14.08.2009 · Read review
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Review of Air Asia - AXM

Air Scandic - who are they?

Advantages: Good cabin crew, no real delays, very smooth
Disadvantages: Older planes in service

...This opinion is my first opinion on the travel sector, and also my first after a long break from Ciao. I have decided to write about a popular topic on Ciao, which happens to be Airlines, after our recent experience on holiday this year. The Hughes? Annual Holiday 2003 was in Greece, in a small town called Sivota. We were due to fly out on the 14th July, through a tour operator called Olympic Holidays. Our paper?s came through the post, and I noticed the flight code, in which the Airline happened to be a code called ?SCY?. We puzzled over this, as we had never heard of an airline called this. I spent five minutes on the internet researching this code, and it turned out to be an airline called Air Scandic, whose main flying base was Manchester, which happened to be our departure airport. We were flying to Preveza airport in Greece...

stevie-boy 26.10.2003 · Read review
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Review of Air Scandic International Airlines -SCY

  The unglamorous life of an air stewardess...

Advantages: Fun, travel, snazzy uniform, lots of time off.
Disadvantages: Long hours, tiring, you either love it or hate it, dealing with passengers, health hazards

...The glamorous life of a cabin crew member. We fly around the world, stay in five star hotels in exotic places and have great tans. We've all seen the films; I remember watching 'Catch Me If You Can' when the stewardesses walk through the terminal with Leo, the film View From The Top and Terminal. The job looks like a piece of cake?ah if only! Airline Cabin Crew are known as flight attendants in countries like the USA, some countries still call them air hostesses/stewardesses or stewards but the trend these days is for the gender free/politically correct terms . The history of the career: Aviation was thought of as a mans industry, the first stewards or 'cabin boys' were male, they loaded bags and served drinks on the small noisy aircraft of the 1920's! This changed in 1930 when Ellen Church, a nurse, approached Steve Stimpson of Boeing...

Katieshaz 08.12.2006 (22.11.2009) · Read review
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Review of Airline Cabin Crew

AIR ASIA: the budget airline for Asia... a huge time saver!

Advantages: Saves time as buses take forever in Asia!
Disadvantages: Food is really expensive and not that great

...Air Asia are an internet based airline serving destinations all over South East Asia. They often have offers on their flights and their tickets are generally very fairly priced. I used them to fly from Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) to Bangkok. I booked my ticket on their website. It is very easy to navigate and when booking you are given the option to add a meal on for the trip, or have heavier luggage, which is what I did as after 6 weeks travelling I knew I would have over 15 kilos of luggage with me! I didn't have any problems checking in. Staff were friendly and efficient. On the plane, I would have liked a bit more room. I was sat next to one of those arm-rest hoggers, so was a bit squidged up against the window, but as the flight was only around 30mins-1hr it wasn't too bad! Food-wise I actually paid for "Nasi Lemak" when I was...

talia790 28.06.2009 · Read review
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Review of Air Asia - AXM

Air Scandiculous!

Advantages: Got me to Lanzarote safely
Disadvantages: Delays, poor service, poor website...

...Flights, who buy seats on chartered flights. After some "googling" on the internet I discovered "SCY" stood for Air Scandic. I had never heard of them, so I did some more investigation on holiday bulletin boards and found 95% of customers warning future customers NOT to travel with Air Scandic. This put a heavy feeling in my stomach, and I then visited the Air Scandic website. It did not inspire confidence. It is an unprofessional poorly designed site with basic information. I discovered we would be flying out on a 165 seat MD-83. I dreaded telling my husband as he is not the best of passengers, and when I showed him a photo (that I found from research) of an MD-83 he was shocked at how small it was. Regret was starting to sink in! Air Scandic is a charter airline and do not have contact with the public (as far as tickets or contracts...

lollyparker 06.07.2005 · Read review
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Review of Air Scandic International Airlines -SCY

Monarch Airline-Low Cost Airline

Advantages: Value for money
Disadvantages: none

...This is another low cost airline which I have used on a number of times and I have found reasonable in cost. The website is very easy to use and informative to the costings of the various add-ons. The staff are very friendly when you get to the airport and always want to please. Recently when my daughter flew to Malaga she found that her luggage was missing so when she spoke to a member of Monarch Airlines in Malaga they were straight away on to the problem and everything got sorted in less than 24 hours and they personally delivered her suitcase to where she was staying. When we booked my daughter in it was a little confusing at Gatwick to know which queue to go to apart from that they were very quick at the booking in desk. The staff were very helpfull and even though it was very busy they still were very polite...

ruth1957 05.09.2009 · Read review
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Review of Monarch Airlines

Gulf Air

Advantages: clean, comfortable, good service
Disadvantages: No direct flights out to Asia

...I have flown repeatedly with Gulf Air out to various places in Asia from India to South East Asia and the far east. These have always required a stop-off in the gulf area of the Middle East, almost always Bahrain which is the airlines hub. The airline has connections from London, Paris and Frankfurt out to Bahrain and from there there are plenty of connections out to Asia and to various places around the Middle East and Islamic countries such as Sudan and Iran. Thus it isn't the best connected airline for those trying to connect from Western Europe as it will almost always require a change over unless Bahrain is the final destination. The main reason I have flown with Gulf Air is that they have consistently been the cheapest option on offer for flights out to Asia-perhaps because of the required change over. I have flown with them for 3...

flyingllamas 02.09.2009 · Read review
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Review of Gulf Air - GFA

Are Air 2000 the first choice airline

Advantages: No problems with safety
Disadvantages: Delays, comfort

...Our flight from Stansted on Saturday morning 12 May took off after a delay on the tarmac. Apparently, the air traffic was very busy and so we ended up waiting for a slot for 30 minutes. We were heading to Palma airport in Majorca for a First Choice holiday at the Luz Marina Hotel in C’an Pastilla for seven nights. Please also see my opinions on First Choice and on Majorca. We had previously travelled to Majorca two years earlier and once again had chosen accommodation available through First Choice only. We then also flew with their Air 2000 sister company. That was when the seats were actually padded. Now they looked like a schoolboy’s prank; toilets with material on top, not pulled quite tight enough so a small dip was visible, waiting for you to fall down into the abyss as soon as bum met cloth. At least this year...

LewisK 25.05.2001 · Read review
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Review of Air 2000

An airline we'd definitely use again!

Advantages: Great cabin crew
Disadvantages: Limited due to being a budget airline; food wasn't so great

...Booking through Canadian Affair, our airline for travelling to Canad recently was Air Transat. In all honesty, we had no dealing with them apart from getting on and off the plane, as everything was pre-booked and pre-paid with the travel operators beforehand. We arrived and booked in just over 3 hours before the flight left Gatwick for Canada, and this was smooth and painless, despite an employee going through the line saying they had overbooked and did anyone want to volunteer to postpone their flight for a day, with compensation, obviously. We didn't, but I understand that this is not an uncommon occurrence with airlines. Boarding the plane, we weren't allowed on before others, despite having our 5 year old son, Will, with us. We had been told that this would enable us to board before the majority, but it wasn't the case. This...

pmcds 20.10.2009 · Read review
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Review of Air Transat

Air Southwest

Advantages: Customer Service, Regional Destinations
Disadvantages: Can be expensive for late bookings

...I had to travel recently to meet up with some friends in London and this airline provided the easiest way to ge there! I work in travel and thought I'd offer a professional opinion on their services. THE COMPANY and THE PLANE Air Southwest is a small airline based in Plymouth and Newquay and operates between 12 destinations all over the UK and Ireland. During the winter they have also been flying to Grenoble for the skiers in the region. They fly Bombardier dash 8 Q300 aircraft - this translates as a prop plane with 50 seats on board with the same seat layout as you would find on most coaches - two on the left and two on the right. For your convenience there is a lavatory and washroom at the front of the cabin. THE JOURNEY I flew from Plymouth to London Gatwick, travelling out on Saturday morning and returning the Same...

Vixterbelle 01.03.2009 · Read review
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Review of Air Southwest