Around the World Trip At The Half: The Airlines

My trip has been one that has required a lot of flights. In total I have taken 19 flights to date, both of the international and the domestic variety. I've flown budget airlines, boutique airlines, major airlines, good airlines, bad airlines, and the just plain weird airlines, but I would say on average my flights have been excellent. To the aspiring travelers, I figured I would share my take on these airlines so you get the same enjoyment I have out of them...or in some cases so you can avoid the torture.

Best of the Best (International): Emirates, Singapore Airlines, Air New Zealand, Malaysia Airlines

I will tackle each individually because they all deserve that.

Emirates: With a gun to my head, I would absolutely say this was the best as well as the best value. I flew them going from Christchurch to Sydney for about $100 American, which at 3.5 hours is a fairly comparable flight to the Alaska Airlines flight from Anchorage to Seattle which is a good bit more expensive ($200 or so more). But they cut no corners - spacious seats with leg room galore, beautiful screens on the seats to view their expansive movie library, delicious and free food service (yes I would like poached salmon served with an incredible rice side!), and excellent assistance from the flight staff. Amazing deal.

Singapore Airlines: Huge screens on the TV's with massive film options, incredibly comfy seats, maybe the friendliest service yet, tasty food, HUGE drink lists with only classy options (free cocktails - and legit ones too!), guest bags with eye covers, sleep socks and ear plugs, and extremely timely boarding and flights? Singapore Airlines were the surprise of all, as they were across the board great with no expectations preceding them. Well done.

Air New Zealand: Major bonus points go their way due to the fact they have the most personality of any airline (their passenger safety videos have to be seen to be believed), they also provide quality seating, food, drink and service. Already known as a great, they earned that reputation.

Malaysia Airlines: This was the airline I felt sketchiest about, yet they provided similar quality everything to the other three during the section that easily could have been the most dodgy. They went above and beyond, and I enjoyed the heck out of my experience.

Best of the Best (Domestic): Bangkok Airways

Now this is how you do domestic flights! Wonderful multilingual staff, great food, tons of leg room and low rates, traveling within Thailand was a dream thanks to them. Not only that, but both Chiang Mai and Koh Samui had lounges for all passengers (not just MVP's or gold members or something of that sort) with free Internet, newspapers, beverages and food. Pretty much amazing, and all for boutique airline rates.

Worst of the Worst (all airlines): Thomas Cook Airlines

It is easy to say how bad this airline is as I am writing this on one of their planes. My flight to London with them is painful in many ways. First off, the tiny seat with no leg room I am in is actually slanted, so I am constantly sitting in a painful position, even with the workaround of putting magazines under my butt to balance me out. The pad is missing from one half of the back of the chair, making it so it kills my back. The staff is outrageously rude (they bomb through the aisle and routinely ram into people, pull blankets off with their carts, and altogether have the demeanor of people who are about as interested in being there as I do in being at a Nickelback concert), the food is basically slung at passengers 30 minutes before they hand out drinks, and their entertainment options are minimal and inflexible.

Sure, they are a budget airline, but that doesn't mean you have to hire crap staff on an airplane that likely belongs on a scrap heap. This is easily the worst airline I have ever been on. Epic fail. I would sooner fly Oceanic Airlines from Sydney to LA than this.

Update: THEY SELL SCRATCH CARDS ON FLIGHTS. WHERE AM I?!?!

Worst of the Worst (Budget): Tiger Airways

Insanely pushy air staff treats you like a child as you fearfully finish a text 30 minutes pre flight while on board, shoving you into a baby chair that makes your flight from Brisbane to Sydney feel interminably long. Oh yeah, and their flights are always delayed or canceled. But they are REALLY cheap, so that is neat.

Weirdest of the Weird: China Eastern Airlines

This was going to be the worst but then I was introduced to Thomas Cook Airlines. This airline was very odd though, as the airplane smelled of cigarettes, the staff (who were great) seemed genuinely fearful of either every passenger lighting up or breaking out into armed insurrection, served food that was odd and often unrecognizable, and allowed passengers to wander the cabin during take off and landing. A genuine anything goes feeling permeated this airline, as a walking talking Panda Bear or kung Fu master as flight staff would have felt par for the course.

American vs. International

Having flown on both American airlines (like Alaska or United) as well as International airlines so far this trip, the comparison comes up easily...do American airlines compare well?

The short answer is no.

While both airlines I've flown in the US to date have had great staff who rolled with the punches well, American airlines are simply so focused on being businesses that customer experience doesn't even seem to matter to them. No leg room, no amenities, charging for EVERYTHING and no entertainment options...these are all things that are opposites of the majority of those international airlines I've enjoyed, but are the reality of American airlines. Alaska Airlines in particular is putrid, charging for everything they can get you on, shoving people into shabby metal carriages that are built for speed, not comfort, and all in all being far too expensive for what you get, international airlines outclass US ones easily.