Good/Bad Airlines & Airports

[liversausage]

Just returned from a trip to Orlando & Las Vegas and would like to share our experiences.
We booked our flights with United Airlines. All flights were indirect with one stopover each.
We flew from Manchester to Orlando via Frankfurt with Lufthansa. This was our first experience of Manchester Airport and found it to be a great airport, with plenty of food choices and shops. Security very quick and a relaxed atmosphere.
Frankfurt airport was great. Easy to get around, good food and very spacious.
We can't fault Lufthansa. The planes were modern, comfortable and clean with excellent IFE and fantastic food. Staff were very friendly.

We flew from Orlando to Las Vegas with United via Houston. As these were short internal flights, there was no free meals or IFE but both were available to purchase.
We only had 1 hour at Houston airport but managed to get food from a variety of places and sit comfortably until our connection.
Arrival at Las Vegas was simple as we arrived via an internal flight.

Flying home wasn't such a good experience. Las Vegas airport was good with enough food available and fairly quick to get through security.
Our indirect flight was with Air Canada Rouge via Toronto. These were old planes that were quite noisy and there was no proper IFE. Ipads could be rented for $10 or you could use your own smartphone or tablet to view a limited choice of older films or TV. Seats were uncomfortable, reading lights either didn't turn on or couldn't turn off, cabin temperature was too high (even after asking if it could be turned down), the headrests on the seats were too low for me (I'm 6' 3")and came off when I raised them. We didn't get food on the first leg but could pay for snacks. We chose not to as we were looking forward to having a meal in Toronto during our 3 hour wait.
What do we say about Toronto? There was hardly anywhere to purchase food and the queues were huge (except the sushi bar). We waited in line for about 1 hour just to buy doughnuts (which were very tasty, from Tim Hortons). The airport was small for the amount of people in it. There wasn't much seating at our gate. Normal seating had been replaced with tall tables with Ipads on and stools for only eight people per table. We had nowhere to sit while we were there.
Our final flight with Air Canada Rouge was just as bad as the first leg but this time we had a so called meal! This was awful and wouldn't feed it to our dog.

In summary, we would definitely recommend Lufthansa and United Airlines but wouldn't use Air Canada Rouge ever again. Also, we would avoid going through Toronto Airport.

Hope this helps anyone who is looking at flying indirect. We have done this twice now and like the money saving aspect and would do it again.
We would love to hear comments from others.

[Pumba75]

I would never use United ever again - awful airline, in my opinion.

[skalexander]

We're flying Air Canada Rouge from Vancouver to LA in January and I'm not expecting much as they're a budget airline and its a short flight. Don't let it put you off using Air Canada though, as in my experience they are excellent.

[ERICSMUM]

Internal flights using budget airlines in the US are like catching a bus - can be noisy, smelly, late and uncomfortable but they get you from A to B at an affordable price. They don't claim anything more.

[Melbatb]

We flew Air Canada home from Montreal (we weren't meant to though - last minute change due to a cancelled flight to JFK). I didn't eat but though the staff were average at best!

[disneyoli]

Heathrow airport... first time using it in quite a while earlier this month and hopefully a while before I have to use it again! Their slogan may be 'making every journey better' but I think it should be making every journey LONGER.

First we were held up in 2 accidents on the M25 (not Heathrow's fault per se, but as Gatwick's closer to where I live, you dont need to use the M25). The parking was always delayed, first stopping at terminal 2, then finally making it to terminal 3. Thought we were going to miss our flight.

The range of shops and restaurants are pretty awful in terminal 3, Gatwick has a much better choice - and then you've got about a 15 minute walk to your gate. I'm sure terminal 5 is a better experience but the fact they want to build ANOTHER runway at this airport is crazy, making it even more busy and disorganised.

Ahah little rant over Virgin were fine as always, planes both ways were older (not the touch screen systems). We had a 747 going out and an Airbus coming back. Checked the legroom online and it says both are the same, but I felt like there was more room on the 747. Wish I had gone for the ELR seats as I had to sort of sit sideways coming back as my legs were squashed. Crew were friendly and chatty as always though.

We landed in JFK which was easy and quick, used the self serve machines (no stamp in the passport though), and flew out of Boston which although smaller, had a decent enough range of food for the size of the terminal.

[floridasarah]

Apart from Air Canada changing our flights we wouldn't fault them. We knew that a rouge flight had no ife but we only had 3 hours from Toronto to Tampa so were fine with our gadgets. We liked Toronto airport going there and back. We thought the ipads were a great time waster while we waited for our flight home. On the way out we had a dreamliner which was an unexpected surprise

Heathrow terminal 2 we didn't get to experience much as we were nearly late on the way.

Tampa airport was ok not as many shops as MCO but good enough. Only ever experienced Gatwick as well and most people know what that is like.

[DIBBadmin]

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