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Best and worst flights

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TheEdge

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Best - that time I managed to get an hours flight in a DC3 for NZ$60 (about £30) over Kaikoura and the South Pacific coast.

Worst - getting stuck wedged in a window seat by the stereotypical fat man with no self awareness between Dubai and London.
 

py_megapixel

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Worst would have to be Ryanair Frankfurt-Manchester about 4 years ago. The following things happened:

1) Information not being properly displayed or announced in the terminal building, so there was a huge rush to security immediately before departure (Frankfurt puts security immediately before the gate, unlike British airports which put it immediately after the check-in process). This lead to a long delay.

2) A near miss with another vehicle on the bus from the terminal to the remote stand, with the resulting heavy breaking causing me to hit my head quite hard on a grab rail (something personal to me, but it added insult to injury - or should that be injury to insult?)

3) When the hold was opened to remove the baggage of the people who didn't make it to security at all (as a result of the aforementioned lack of information), it transpired that the bags had not been labelled properly, so everyone had to get out, walk round and move any luggage which belonged to them into a separate pile (I'm sure this procedure has a technical name but I forget what)

4) All of this happened on an unusually hot day, even considering it was mid-summer on the continent, and despite this Ryanair staff still had the audacity to charge us for bottled water in full knowledge that we had just had all of our drinking water thrown out at security and then been immediately hustled onto a bus with no chance to get any more

5) Violent turbulence for a lot of the flight including one point where it felt for a couple of seconds that we had entered free-fall

The redeeming factor was that the aircraft itself had the new Boeing Sky interior rather than the horribly gaudy old one that Ryanair used to use.
 

306024

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The best and most memorable has to be Heathrow to Hong Kong with Cathay Pacific a week before Kai Tak airport closed in 1998. Booked a window seat on the right hand side hoping for the classic approach with the sharp right turn just before touchdown. We weren’t disappointed. The pilot was making his last landing at Kai Tak and explained the approach over the PA. With beautiful weather the view was spectacular.

Worst was Los Angeles to New York with Virgin America. Had travelled from Baltimore to LA by train, so decided to fly back. Big mistake. No leg room, miserable flight attendant, so hot it was stifling, couldn’t wait to get off. Yet when we landed there was no available gate so we got a tour of JFK for nearly an hour to prolong the agony, without a hint of apology.
 

YorkshireBear

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Best flight. Manchester to Inverness, Loganair, Embrarer 145. Sat on the left side and could see all the Highlands and across to the western islands with a gorgeous sunset. Love the planes anyway but was empty and I think my desk in Manchester to hotel in Inverness was about 2hr 30.

Worst flight, as a child I remember a flight being 10 hours late, leaving East Midlands at 3am rather then the 5pm night before. Package deal, arrive and tour operator couldn't get a coach so waited 4 hours to be picked up. I think everyone was unimpressed.

Had some rough landings and bad experiences with Ryanair over the years that have left a mark! I no longer both with them and to Europe I spend the extra money to avoid them even if it means easyJet and a train.
 

jfollows

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Best: 306024 reminded me, Cathay Pacific Gatwick to Hong Kong in the first year of non-stop flights, summer 1984 anyway, First Class. 35 minutes in Kai Tak followed by a departure for Osaka, my luggage made it also.
Worst: Aeroflot Irkutsk to Moscow, a few weeks later. Just didn't seem safe. I'm still alive!

The few flights I've made with Ryanair haven't been my "worst" only because I set my expectations low in advance, and had them matched but not exceeded. I avoid them unless they're the only direct flight option for my journey.

Aeroflot internal was bad because it was haphazard. Getting on was vague, but then I seem to recall that I was told to turn left, so got a seat up front, albeit not the one on my boarding pass. I was in the company of old men with medals. Maybe they kept an eye on me? The plane whistled as it gained altitude as if leaking air all the time. It was just a little strange, not friendly, definitely foreign.
 
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Bald Rick

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Best: Nadi - LA with Air Pacific. Left in a massive storm, such that most of Fiji was flooded sufficient to prevent anyone getting to the airport, so we had the plane to ourselves. But the highlight was landing in LA at about 120knots, so smoothly it was imperceptible. We were parallel with another plane on approach.

Worst: surprisingly not the flight where the starboard engine (turboprop) failed catastrophically and caught fire at 8000 feet. In a way that was quite exciting. The worst was returning from Ibiza to Gatwick, delayed 7 hours, and a hired in B727 arrived. Nominally ‘Sabre Air’ but with stickers over the Dan Air logos everywhere. Our pilot appeared to have glasses with lenses made from the bottom of jam jars, and when I boarded she appeared to be reading a manual that might have said ‘welcome to your Boeing 727, we hope it give you many miles of happy flying’. Somehow, the flight was nearly 3 hours, and we hit turbulence on final approach, sufficient to cause a few screams when we dropped about 50 feet in no time. Very hard landing. Then our bags were late. I was supposed to be in work that day at 0900 - turned up at 1700...
 

Snow1964

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Best was a BA flight to Dubai, where prior to take off at Heathrow pilot invited our daughter into cockpit whilst still boarding (we had got a special on BA holidays and upgraded to First), so there were 2 top notch flight attendants for about 7 people in the cabin.

Worst was a ski holiday package tour return flight which was hours late (about 1979) which got diverted to Luton when there was few inches of snow, landed on the runway and got stuck as it was too icy to turn off the runway. Were told the airport had been closed and had to wait for a tug to tow us off the runway. The plane had seen better days as well, I forget the airline, but had never heard of it at the time
 

stuu

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Best: London to Doha with Qatar. The plane was almost empty, so everyone could have a row of seats each to stretch out on.

Worst: Virgin Atlantic from Orlando to Gatwick. Hit some sort of air pocket off the coast of Canada, just after coffee had been served. Massive bang and the plane seemed to briefly freewill. Things flew up and hit the ceiling, the pilot came over the PA and ordered cabin crew to their seats immediately. Never heard that before or since... and it was about 6 months after 9/11 so everyone was very jumpy anyway
 

Tryfan

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Best: SingaporeAir from Auckland to Heathrow via Changri in March 2020. Was in NZ for a family wedding. When covid struck and both NZ and UK went into lockdown more or less at the same time all flights got cancelled. Having argued vehemently with SingaporeAir over the phone to try to get repatriated unsuccessfully i’d accepted I was going to have to pay for new flights home. Out of the blue I got a call from SingaporeAir saying there was one flight from AKL to LHR, it would stop and refuel at SIN but we would not be allowed off. Did we want it? I said yes as just wanted to get home. On arrival at Auckland airport for check in it was clear they’d sold almost every seat. My Wife had breast cancer the previous year and do I played the cancer card, and asked how much to upgrade to Business Class? They said special deal of $1300 NZD (£700) - a steal I thought.

The flight itself was fabulous on a recently refurbished A380. Spectacular upgrade from economy class. A long time on one plane 28 hours including the stopover at Changri for refuel, restock and crew change. The clincher was when I read the T&C’s for the travel insurance I found it was covered and successfully claimed the upgrade back. Win win!

The worst: British Caledonian flight from LA to Gatwick via Manchester in 1992. Back then I smoked and you could on a plane. On check in in LA they said that they couldn’t sit my girlfriend and I together, we had to sit on an aisle seat one in front of the other. After take off they announced they’d a problem with the plane and would be making additional stops. We landed at Denver, Bangor (Maine), Shannon (Ireland) and finally Manchester. Most passengers got off at Manchester so we had an almost empty Lockheed TriStar to travel down to Gatwick, so we finally were able to sit together. Until the stewardess wanted us back in our original seats as “we might upset the balance of the aircraft”. I said “no, it’s if it crashes you want to know who we were after we’ve been killed”. The embarrassed look on her face said I was right. We did sit in our seats for take off and moved as soon as we could. There was no apology from B Cal for the late arrival, no real explanation of what the faults were , just technical issues and no extra service considering the 12 hour flight became closer to 16 hours. On the upside it was the end of a superb holiday and that girlfriend became my wife a couple of years later.
 

Aictos

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Best flight was a unexpected upgrade from Club World to Business as my flight from London to Atlanta was overbooked or American Airlines from London to Chicago and landing in the latter with a warm welcome and a acknowledgement that they were grateful for passengers using them when there were other options.

Worse flight was Ryanair from Bremen to Edinburgh having Bremen staff trying to exhort money from me by saying that my name on the ticket and my passport didn't match up despite Aer Lingus, American Airlines, British Airways, Easyjet, BMI etc all accepting the shorten version of my christian name to be used on the tickets followed by a rather cheap and tacky trumpeted announcement stating another on time arrival with Ryanair. That's why I detest Ryanair and won't ever be found on any flight operated by them.
 

185143

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I've had some excellent flights.

A US Delta domestic surprisingly being one of them! San Fran-LAX, albeit with a delay of around an hour which was spent on the tarmac at SFO due to a fault. Decent service onboard for a short flight but the highlight came at LAX when we were disembarking and the captain caught me having a nosey through the open cockpit door as we approached to disembark and then promptly invited me in for a look around. This is way post-9/11 for context too. Took the time to explain the key instruments and showed what the delay had been caused by, a faulty sensor for something fairly unimportant. But paperwork...

An Icelandair flight back from Reykjavik on an older plane with no IFE was pretty good as they handed iPads out. A night on a Virgin 747 with a full row to myself coming back from Vegas was more enjoyable than I thought it'd be, looking down at a lightning storm over Chicago was interesting.

Worst flight? Without a doubt the transatlantic Air Transat flight to Toronto that was around 4 hours late. Food offering was rather meagre onboard, slices of pizza and sandwiches along with hot drinks and juices/water. Substantial meals, soft drinks such as Pepsi, alcohol and even blankets were all at extra cost. Might not quite be in the spirit of the thread, but Ryanair charging more for a drink (admittedly Grey Goose and Pepsi) than for the flight warrants a special mention as well. Though it was a decent flight back from the Emerald Isle and got me back into Manchester very early and the bags were quick. In good time to get the train home an hour earlier... except Northern helpfully cancelled it!
 

Royston Vasey

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Worst was Los Angeles to New York with Virgin America. Had travelled from Baltimore to LA by train, so decided to fly back. Big mistake. No leg room, miserable flight attendant, so hot it was stifling, couldn’t wait to get off
I think my worst was a economy redeye on Virgin America as well, fully booked flight from SFO-EWR about 8-9 years ago. Now, I loved flying VX back then, they were years ahead of the legacy airlines' product, but that's the only domestic overnight I ever did west to east with any airline, and never again! As you say, cramped, red hot and surrounded by agitated children and inconsiderate "adults". The shortness of the flight, five hours, was a curse in terms of sleep but a blessing in terms of simply getting to the end.

My best is hands down the Qatar QSuite business class from Doha to Tokyo. Wonderful hard product and wonderful service.

I loved flying upstairs on BA's 747-400s as well, I always seemed to get a good and attentive crew. One from Dallas to London springs to mind, experienced crew in a good mood, food unusually good, loads of champagne flowing, and at the end of a fantastically successful and exciting business trip. Always helps.

Similarly, despite AA's then terribly dated 2-3-2 777 business class at the time, I flew a morning Beijing to Chicago after an inspirational but very long and tiring trip several years ago. At the end of two weeks in China, all I wanted was a Heineken and a bowl of pasta and a gleaming polished aluminium Boeing. I sat three across the middle with two great work mates, eating, drinking, watching movies and bantering with each other and the crew the whole way. So it's not all about the product!
 

Spamcan81

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Best - Concorde without a doubt.
Worst - a few to choose from but I'll nominate Chicago to Heathrow on a United 777. Got off to a bad start when someone had to be removed from the aircraft and the search for their luggage delayed matters considerably. After that I just found it damn uncomfortable and was unable to get even a wink of sleep.
 

SteveM70

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Best - Belfast to Providence RI on Norwegian. Virtually empty flight and I lay across 4 seats and got a decent kip

Worst equal 1 - Auckland to Heathrow, and I’m given seat 1A so a bulkhead in front of me and therefore no room to stretch out my (lengthy) legs. Compounded by seat 1B being occupied by a man who seemed to be suffering from some sort of Alan Whicker delusions, who kept regaling me with tales of where he’d been, and that he wouldn’t normally be in cattle class but blah blah. I pretended to be asleep

Worst equal 2 - sightseeing flight at the Grand Canyon. Flying at about 500 feet at right angles to the canyon, as we cross the rim the plane is now at about 6000 feet relative to the river beneath and the pressure change causes the plane - a little 6 seater - to drop like a stone for about a second. Pilot laughed like a drain. We didn’t
 

306024

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I loved flying upstairs on BA's 747-400s as well, I always seemed to get a good and attentive crew.
My favourite way to fly, or it was. Fortunate to do Heathrow to Cape Town a couple of months before they were effectively withdrawn from service, which was another excellent flight. Remember the pilot introducing the plane as “The Queen of the Skies”, he sounded very proud to be flying the machine, and why not.
 

Sweetjesus

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Best: London to Kuwait - the flight was nearly empty and had an entire row to myself. The staff was very welcoming and paid a special attention considering my disability. This was with a low-cost carrier - think Ryanair but long distance.

Worst: All KLM flights, espeically Amsterdam to Dubai - for some reason, all KLM airplanes I've been in are so cold that it was hard to sleep even with a complimentary blanket on.
 

ABB125

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I've only ever been on four return flights (only one of which was long haul), so I don't have much to choose from. Simply because it was the most recent, I'll go for the long trip for both categories.

Worst: Heathrow to Newark (New Jersey, not Nottinghamshire!), simply because it was the first long haul flight I'd ever been on and seemed to take forever. It was with British Airways, on a 777-200 (G-YMMK) which was a bit over 20 years old (I think; I can't be bothered to check!) so the entertainment system was rather primitive: the screen was pretty much useless. There was about an hour's delay at Heathrow due to a plane fault, so this gave an opportunity to explore Terminal 5C (summary: there's not much here!).

Best: Baltimore* to Heathrow, again with BA, this time on a nearly new 787-800 (G-ZBJJ) which was rather nice. Apart from the fact that my entertainment system didn't work. I was kind of hoping that I'd be upgraded as a result, but they just found me a different seat in economy. The journey was much quicker than outward, just under 6 hours I think.

It's worth noting that this trip was in mid-February 2020, so with hindsight it's quite amazing that it went ahead (especially considering it was a school trip!).
 

randyrippley

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One flight is seared into the memory.
Mid/late 1980s, September. I was waiting at Boston for the evening BA flight to Gatwick. It was inbound from Philadelphia but late, due to weather. At Boston the leading edge of what was described on the TV as the "worst, earliest winter storm in 100 years" was just arriving. Gale force winds and heavy snow. I asked the gategirls what time the plane was due? "Sorry don't know". So what happens if the flight has to be cancelled? "Captain xxxxx NEVER cancels.......". A comment delivered with hysterical laughter. "Oh ****!" I thought............The destination boards were full of cancelled flights but ours was shown as still going, though time TBA.
Eventually it arrives around 90 minutes late. Little time wasted getting us onboard, while this happens the plane was sprayed with deicer. The aircraft was completely full, the back three or four rows full of black-robed Muslim women intending to fly on from Gatwick to Jordan. The aircraft was an early 747 with P&W engines - faster than the alternatives.
A pneumatic starting trolley was dragged up and an attempt made to start the engines. This proved impossible as the wind was rotating the engines backwards. Two trolleys were tried, then three in series, no success. In the end a hose is run from an adjacent El Al 747 and the engines bump-started from that.
We get the go ahead to go - but 90 minutes has elapsed since deicing and the federal limit is one hour. That gets ignored and we get towed through a foot of snow to the end of the taxiway..............and wait for the snowploughs to clear the runway, its getting scraped before every takeoff. In the back of the aircraft the Muslim women collectively start wailing, praying and chanting - they're convinced we're about to die. Runway cleared, we have to go immediately before too much more snow pitches. So we have what must be one of the fastest take off runs ever, into zero visibility. Behind us the airport gets closed down 30 minutes later. The wheels come up, we're airborne and applause breaks out. For a takeoff, not a landing. Nearly four hours late.
But things haven't finished yet. We get to cruising height - in the jet stream. A fast jet stream, possibly the fastest recorded. If you like fairground rides, great. Otherwise............four hours of sheer hell. Yes just four hours. Those P&W engines plus the wind got us across in four hours, as we came in to land the pilot announced "we've just made the second-fastest subsonic Atlantic crossing" - only an RAF VC10 was quicker. Despite leaving four hours late we arrived close to within 30 minutes of time. We landed to the sound of a cabin full of shocked silence, something never to forget. The Muslim women's onward service was supposed to use the same aircraft - if they'd refused I couldn't have blamed them. All of us were scared, but they were all convinced they were on a one-way trip.

Incidentally on the outward bound trip a few weeks earlier the pilot had routed via Iceland so we could see the aurora - and get a look at an erupting volcano.................safety had a different meaning in those days
 
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Shaw S Hunter

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Best flight is easy - Las Vegas North to Grand Canyon and return with Scenic Airlines DHC-6s aka Twin Otters. A memorable day was capped on the return by me being allocated the exit door seat which has a larger window than others in the cabin on that type. Happily got through a whole reel of film. Cost the equivalent of £155 for an all-inclusive day trip from my hotel on The Strip and worth every penny.

I have been lucky not to have had any real nightmares though a couple do linger. First was way back, AirUK Fokker F27 Friendship Amsterdam to Leeds, clear weather across the North Sea and then allowed amazing views of the Appleby-Frodingham complex (Scunthorpe steelworks). But then we descended into cloud and lots of heavy turbulence, the kind that would seriously injure anyone not wearing their seatbelt. As we flared for the landing the cockpit door swung open and the nose of the aircraft was most definitely not pointing in the direction of travel. I had hardly flown before then so just thought "so that's what turbulence is like" and shared that opinion with a fellow passenger: they told me that they had made countless flights to and around the US and had never experienced anything quite so rough. And to be fair I have likewise not had any similar experience subsequently.

The other obvious negative experience was a First Choice charter to Mallorca, high density 757 with minimal legroom. It was a night flight but sleep was impossible. Thankfully on the return I had an emergency exit row seat which by comparison to the outward flight was absolute luxury.
 

stuart100100

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13 Dec 2009
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174
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Liverpool
Best flight - Stockholm to Manchester. I was supposed to be flying with Monarch however they went out of business while I was away. A "rescue" flight was arranged and I had a text saying it was to be operated by BA and to turn up to the airport as normal. When the plane taxied in, it was actually being operated by Qatar Airways (on a BA codeshare). It was only about a third full so everyone got a row to themselves and was the most comfortable flight I've been on

Worst - Manchester to Lanzarote with Flying Colours (late 1990s). There was a baggage handlers strike at Arrecife Airport so when we landed we were kept on the plane for a long time (probably about an hour) in the middle of the night in the summer heat....then the cabin crew asked for 10 volunteers to unload the bags from the aircraft! After that we all had to collect the bags ourselves from the tarmac
 

YorkshireBear

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23 Jul 2010
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One flight is seared into the memory.
Mid/late 1980s, September. I was waiting at Boston for the evening BA flight to Gatwick. It was inbound from Philadelphia but late, due to weather. At Boston the leading edge of what was described on the TV as the "worst, earliest winter storm in 100 years" was just arriving. Gale force winds and heavy snow. I asked the gategirls what time the plane was due? "Sorry don't know". So what happens if the flight has to be cancelled? "Captain xxxxx NEVER cancels.......". A comment delivered with hysterical laughter. "Oh ****!" I thought............The destination boards were full of cancelled flights but ours was shown as still going, though time TBA.
Eventually it arrives around 90 minutes late. Little time wasted getting us onboard, while this happens the plane was sprayed with deicer. The aircraft was completely full, the back three or four rows full of black-robed Muslim women intending to fly on from Gatwick to Jordan. The aircraft was an early 747 with P&W engines - faster than the alternatives.
A pneumatic starting trolley was dragged up and an attempt made to start the engines. This proved impossible as the wind was rotating the engines backwards. Two trolleys were tried, then three in series, no success. In the end a hose is run from an adjacent El Al 747 and the engines bump-started from that.
We get the go ahead to go - but 90 minutes has elapsed since deicing and the federal limit is one hour. That gets ignored and we get towed through a foot of snow to the end of the taxiway..............and wait for the snowploughs to clear the runway, its getting scraped before every takeoff. In the back of the aircraft the Muslim women collectively start wailing, praying and chanting - they're convinced we're about to die. Runway cleared, we have to go immediately before too much more snow pitches. So we have what must be one of the fastest take off runs ever, into zero visibility. Behind us the airport gets closed down 30 minutes later. The wheels come up, we're airborne and applause breaks out. For a takeoff, not a landing. Nearly four hours late.
But things haven't finished yet. We get to cruising height - in the jet stream. A fast jet stream, possibly the fastest recorded. If you like fairground rides, great. Otherwise............four hours of sheer hell. Yes just four hours. Those P&W engines plus the wind got us across in four hours, as we came in to land the pilot announced "we've just made the second-fastest subsonic Atlantic crossing" - only an RAF VC10 was quicker. Despite leaving four hours late we arrived close to within 30 minutes of time. We landed to the sound of a cabin full of shocked silence, something never to forget. The Muslim women's onward service was supposed to use the same aircraft - if they'd refused I couldn't have blamed them. All of us were scared, but they were all convinced they were on a one-way trip.

Incidentally on the outward bound trip a few weeks earlier the pilot had routed via Iceland so we could see the aurora - and get a look at an erupting volcano.................safety had a different meaning in those days
Sounds like something that would not happen these days at all!
 

TravelDream

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7 Aug 2016
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677
Worst would have to be Ryanair Frankfurt-Manchester about 4 years ago. The following things happened:

1) Information not being properly displayed or announced in the terminal building, so there was a huge rush to security immediately before departure (Frankfurt puts security immediately before the gate, unlike British airports which put it immediately after the check-in process). This lead to a long delay.

That's not exactly unusual. You'll find the same process at Singapore Changi which is supposedly one of the best airports in the world as well as many other airports.

You will also have it happen in this country if you fly to the US.
 

thejuggler

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8 Jan 2016
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1,186
Best. An internal flight from KL old terminal to Pangkor. Dash 7 sitting backwards from a former international airport which was like entering a building the day after the apocolypse.

Same trip was a one hour 777 trip from Penang to Singapore with about 50 pax. The belly was full of IBM computers.

Seaplane around west of Scotland.

Worst. Long haul on a Monarch A300-600R with 28 inch seat pitch.

Embraer 110 from Claremont to Brussels in high winds, circling Brussels for an hour.
 
Joined
13 Apr 2011
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622
Location
Helsby
Best flight - British Caledonian Tristar from Manchester to Cyprus, a great plane and very comfortable seats.

Worst flight - Too many to mention for varying reasons but one that stands out was from Tenerife to Manchester on an old B707 in horrendous weather. The turbulence meant no-one left their seats for three hours after take off. No food, no drinks, no toilets. Even the flight crew in the cabin were terrified.
 

TravelDream

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7 Aug 2016
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677
This is a hard one.

Best:
I've been lucky to fly business class a number of times for both work and pleasure.
Qatar Airways Q Suites are just something else and the service onboard is impeccable.
In terms of price-quality ratio, I think Vietnam Airlines is a hard one to beat. They have some very cheap fares from the UK to S.E Asia and Australia and their 787s and A350s are incredibly comfortable in business. The crew are fairly decent too.
In terms of economy:
Probably one of the very quiet flights I have been on. No matter how bad the service, if you have a row to yourself, the flight is so much nicer. Here are a few which stand out:
A Thomson 757-200 flight from Ibiza to Birmingham on the first flight of the season going against the flow. It was surprisingly busy all things considered, but only had about 20 passengers onboard.
A 737-800 flight from Moscow to Dublin on Aeroflot. There couldn't have been a dozen of us onboard. Service was mediocre as two of the cabin crew could be found sleeping across the two back rows, but they were very generous with the booze which isn't usually Aeroflot style. I joined them for that sleep to be fair.
A Qatar flight from Doha to Cardiff on a 787-8. I'd guess there were around 50 onboard and I had a row of 9 to myself. Service was super attentive and the crew offered two meals which was good as I was starving.
A Cathay Dragon/ Dragonair A330-300 from Xiamen to Hong Kong. The plane was upgraded last minute from an A320 which would have been empty anyway. Probably fifty in economy meaning a nice nap in a middle row was easy. It's a short flight with little service though.
 

Iskra

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11 Jun 2014
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West Riding
Best:

Doing Aerobatics in RAF Tutor's, although some of the G-forces were challenging. Also piloting them myself was pretty cool.
Helicopter down the grand Canyon.
Anything with a free bar.
Anything with good views out of the windows or cool weather- ie icebergs South of Greenland, flying over the alps, volcanoes or around thunderstorms when you can see the lightning in the distance.
A Britten Norman Islander from the South Coast of Iceland to the Island of Heimaey in the Westman islands, landing on this:

1624913802162.png

Image from here: https://guidetoiceland.is/best-of-iceland/top-5-destinations-in-iceland

I've never managed business class/first class, but maybe one day!

Worst:

London Stansted-Lamezia Terme (Italy) 2-3 hours of Ryanair is just awful, and as it's a regular flight I make the novelty wore off long ago, so now I try take different routes, operators or modes.
BMI Chicago-Manchester, just a very rough flight all the way and then it was foggy at Manchester, the pilot missed the runway at Manchester, but the plane had a camera on the front so you could see it all happening which was unnerving. A lot of people were already desperate to land, so going round again caused quite a bit of vomiting from those that couldn't hold it any longer.
Virgin Manchester- Vegas. Nothing massively wrong with the flight, but when we got to Vegas a Mexican 737 had broken down in the only gate big enough for a 747 so we sat on the runway in the heat with no service for over an hour wasn't great.
I've also been followed down the runway by fire engines on a couple of flights on landing due to unspecified technical issues.
 

Butts

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16 Jan 2011
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Stirlingshire
A Twin Otter from Glasgow to Barra where you land on the beach has got to be near the top of my list. It also cruises at a relatively low height enabling you to make the most of the wonderful scenery.

It was quite affordable with Flybe subbing it out to Loganair, but is pretty expensive now the latter are in sole charge.

The worst any Military Flight - particularly Wessex Helicopters (temporary deafness guaranteed).
 

cnjb8

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26 Feb 2019
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Nottingham
I’ve been to multiple countries but only one on plane, to Ireland.
Worst: East Midlands to Knock in Western Ireland on Ryanair. Started off fine, except for the fact someone had left a fingernail under the seat in front, until we were over Ireland when the plane started going upwards and downwards, not violently but sort of like a wave. I felt very sick. When we were at the descent to Knock it started to rain, so the pilot had to slam the plane onto the tarmac at Knock. Very traumatic for my first flight.
Best: Return from Knock to East Mids, very smooth sailing and nice to see my home city from above as we had to circle around EM, landing was smooth too. Only issue was we had to wait on the boiling hot plane for about an hour as they wouldn’t open the terminal doors or something like that, I can’t really remember. Sounds bad but I have only been on these two flights and this one was much better!
 

GRALISTAIR

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11 Apr 2012
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Dalton GA USA & Preston Lancs
Best last minute Op-Up on MAN-EWR on United airlines Jan 2018. Business First seat is wonderful across the Atlantic on an 8 hour flight..

Worst also a UA flight out of DEN - got relegated to a middle seat in the back of the plane and there was horrendous turbulence.
 
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