Long Haul flights (spec. Australia)

LaceSensor · **Joined:** 2nd Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 3137

Hi

Out of the blue work have asked me to go to Australia

does anyone have experience with the following operators:

Etihad
Emirates
Quantas
British Airways

for long haul flights, specifically Sydney, but general opinions welcome.
I hear Singapore is a good carrier, but my travel company havent offered them as an option. I know they have a routing but its 3 connecting flights vs 1 with stop over, or 2, from the options above.

Many thanks yall

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49244

Quantus A380s fall out of the sky, if that helps.

kalmar · **Posted:** Tue Nov 09, 2010 11:33

"Quantas never crashed"

citation:

LaceSensor · **Joined:** 2nd Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 3137

if it helps im preferring ETIHAD at present.

Squirt · **Joined:** 31st Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 6608

My short-haul British Airways trip was nothing special, but I've heard the long haul ones are much better.

I imagine that was of no help at all.

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32624

I asked my (former travel agent) colleague, she said:

Quote:

Her: I'd go for Emirates - but thats possibly becasue i think a stop in Dubai would be nice. Their onboard service though is meant to be fab. [Another colleague] said his mum and brother flew on the new Airbus planes with Emirates and said they were brill although that might be a bit offputting at the moment after Quantas have grounded theirs.
Her: BA I find really boring
Her: But if he gets a quantas frequent flyer card he may get a few freebies around Oz
‎‎Me: hah yes there is the whole "quantus fall out of the sky" thing
her: but then Quantas have the best flight safety record and they are the only ones who have grounded their planes. The others are still flying them and maybe waiting to see what Quantas do.

Wullie · **Joined:** 27th Jun, 2008 **Posts:** 6183

I've never got on with BA. Emirates were no bad. Never used the other 2.

Zardoz · **Posted:** Tue Nov 09, 2010 11:53

I flew with Etihad to Dubai recently and they were great.

Al the carriers you've mentioned are decent though tbh.

Trooper · **Joined:** 4th Mar, 2010 **Posts:** 22392

Never done the long haul to Oz, but for my flights to the US, I always use BA.
The flat beds are nice, service is good, terminal 5 is much better than any other airport.

LaceSensor · **Joined:** 2nd Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 3137

Thanks for the tips so far.

Point taken on the Quantas issue.
For note, the flight will be in 10 days time, so hopefully investigations find an outcome by that time.

Emirates does stop over in Dubai, but it arrives in Sydney around 7am on the sunday, and I need to work on the monday.
Etihad goes via Abudhabi, and arrives Syndey on Saturday night 8pm, so a bit more time to recover and get my bearings.

I need to travel to Newcastle (2-3 hrs north of Syndey) for the work starting on Monday.

Complicated!

leaning towards Etihad atm due to arrival times, and the Dubai thing would be cool but its literally a 3 hr airport stop. Not a day to look around.

chinnyhill10 · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 15695

My mate who is living and working out there always tries to fly back via one of the Saudi (or similar) airlines. Much nicer experience apparently.

Sir Taxalot · **Joined:** 5th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 4834

Both times I've flown into Sydney it was with BA, and they were fine when we were in economy. It's a pretty long and boring flight, and I actually found the short stop to be more of a nuisance than anything. I believe BA and Qantas have some sort of sharey collaboration thing going on, as sometimes BA planes will also have Qantas flight numbers (I forget the proper term for this).

Can't really comment on the other airlines, but BA are OK. HTH.

By the way, how are you getting to Newcastle? Outside of the city centre the public transport is not great from the little I've seen, so plan ahead. Driving is by far and away the most popular mode of transport.

MaliA · **Posted:** Wed Nov 10, 2010 22:18

BA. Every time. If they don't fly there, I don't go there.

Grim... · **Posted:** Wed Nov 10, 2010 23:35

MaliA wrote:

BA. Every time. If they don't fly there, I don't go there.

Oxford?

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49244

I love that Oxford Airport is now London Oxford Airport. WTF?

MaliA · **Posted:** Wed Nov 10, 2010 23:40

Craster wrote:

I love that Oxford Airport is now London Oxford Airport. WTF?

Oxford Airport is in Kidlington. And you've been watching Four Weddings.

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49244

Not in at least ten years. It wasn't called that then, was it? I thought it was a recent thing.

Grim... · **Posted:** Wed Nov 10, 2010 23:42

He means a shit show on Channel 4, not the film.

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49244

Oh. In that case I very much haven't.

MaliA · **Posted:** Wed Nov 10, 2010 23:45

Craster wrote:

Not in at least ten years. It wasn't called that then, was it? I thought it was a recent thing.

It is a recent thing.
It is also Bicester Village, London, presumably as the drones that flock there don't realise it is 61 miles from London.

Plissken · **Posted:** Thu Nov 11, 2010 0:16

Probably late but preferences in order

Emirates
Etihad
Qantas
Toenails ripped out
BA

metalangel · **Posted:** Thu Nov 11, 2010 0:38

BA are ghastly in my experience. Standard class on Virgin is better than executive on BA*!

*several years ago. I don't go flying on airlines I hate just to keep this view up to date... in case it's still true.

LaceSensor · **Joined:** 2nd Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 3137

Plissken wrote:

Probably late but preferences in order

Emirates
Etihad
Qantas
Toenails ripped out
BA

I went with Etihad in the end cos of arrival times mainly.
Had the option to go Worldtraveller on BA but meh.

myp · **Posted:** Thu Nov 11, 2010 18:18

Craster wrote:

I love that Oxford Airport is now London Oxford Airport. WTF?

East Midlands was renamed Nottingham East Midlands for a while, despite being in Derbyshire and the closest city being Leicester.

Robin Hood Airport is in Doncaster, but I can kind of see why that is.

JohnCoffey · **Posted:** Thu Nov 11, 2010 20:37

Craster wrote:

I love that Oxford Airport is now London Oxford Airport. WTF?

Sounds better to Americans.

myp · **Posted:** Fri Nov 12, 2010 0:58

JohnCoffey wrote:

Craster wrote:

I love that Oxford Airport is now London Oxford Airport. WTF?

Sounds better to Americans.

Don't be ridiculous - Americans don't leave America.

JohnCoffey · **Posted:** Fri Nov 12, 2010 1:08

Well it's the same as London Gatwick. Crawley isn't in fookin London it's in Sussex. Yet they call it LGW. Hey, it made my mate feel good

nickachu · **Posted:** Fri Nov 12, 2010 11:01

myoptikakaka wrote:

Robin Hood Airport is in Doncaster, but I can kind of see why that is.

Because it was stolen from the rich and given to the poor?

MaliA · **Posted:** Fri Nov 12, 2010 11:03

nickachu wrote:

myoptikakaka wrote:

Robin Hood Airport is in Doncaster, but I can kind of see why that is.

Because it was stolen from the rich and given to the poor?

BOOM!

LaceSensor · **Joined:** 2nd Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 3137

Sir Taxalot wrote:

Both times I've flown into Sydney it was with BA, and they were fine when we were in economy. It's a pretty long and boring flight, and I actually found the short stop to be more of a nuisance than anything. I believe BA and Qantas have some sort of sharey collaboration thing going on, as sometimes BA planes will also have Qantas flight numbers (I forget the proper term for this).

Can't really comment on the other airlines, but BA are OK. HTH.

By the way, how are you getting to Newcastle? Outside of the city centre the public transport is not great from the little I've seen, so plan ahead. Driving is by far and away the most popular mode of transport.

I think its called Codeshare, and I will be planning to take a train, they have one every hour it seems.

Thanks for help

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32624

Yes, it's a codeshare. One operator will own and fly the plane, another is (essentially) acting as a reseller for some proportion of the sets. Airlines don't like to look like mere resellers though, so they hide that by assigned two (or more, I've seen a four-way codeshare) flight numbers to the aircraft.

metalangel · **Posted:** Fri Nov 12, 2010 13:38

This confuses people who don't travel that often, when your flight's number on the departure board is changing between four different numbers.

"How can there be four flights all going to San Francisco at 11:30??"

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32624

The booking system is supposed to tell you it's a codeshare and what the main code is, but lots don't.

metalangel · **Posted:** Fri Nov 12, 2010 13:46

Nope. We were just told UA777. It was shared with four others, so I just looked at the board, saw it and San Francisco and the correct time, and was fine.

Mrs Meaty had to look for quite a while to find it and then longer, wondering why the flight number kept changing.

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32624

MetalAngel wrote:

Nope. We were just told UA777. It was shared with four others, so I just looked at the board, saw it and San Francisco and the correct time, and was fine.

My QA analyst would fail any of my software that did this, and rightly so.

metalangel · **Posted:** Fri Nov 12, 2010 13:53

I'll confirm this 100% if you want, if I can find the itinerary provided by United Vacations. It has to be around here somewhere.

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32624

Oh, no, I don't doubt it at all. I said software should tell the user; a lot of it sadly gets this wrong, including whatever hamfisted system you booked through.

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49244

My last flight didn't reference the BMI code at all on the arrivals board, just the United one. So my taxi home turned up and fucked off again because he couldn't see my flight on the board.

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32624

It's worth checking if you're on a codeshare, independently of your booking, and if so, what the real code for your flight is. Then use that.

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49244

Thanks. That's incredibly useful. Now go totally change time and tell me that in April.

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32624

If it helps, I've understood codesharing since late 2001?

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49244

I thought I understood codesharing, until they decided that they were going to display every code except the one I booked under. Also, even the term makes no sense. They're not codesharing, they're flight sharing. Otherwise they'd, duh, have the same code.

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Long Haul flights (spec. Australia)

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