Airline passenger news and views

I recognise that low cost flying is really low budget flying. I sometimes travel with my husband and we go business class and I love it. Other times we fly Ryanair or EasyJet and it is vastly cheaper and vastly less comfortable. I think the phrase is 'you get what you pay for'.
Both work for me as long as I do not mistakenly expect business class travel for budget class fares.

This Iberia merger makes it all the more likely that BA will press ahead with the American Airlines deal. There is already an application in with the Department of Justice for antitrust immunity. They need because the current rules prohibit foreign airlines from owning more than a quarter of a US carrier. Overturning this would suit the European Commission which has been pushing for closer cooperation on transatlantic flights.

This is so sad. The PR chief for BA was on the radio yesterday. He was sacked by BA and has spent four years with this case hanging over him and his family. It is all so unnecessary. I do hope that the OFT recognise that any further action is not in the public interest and certainly not worth wasting any more money on.

This does show how difficult it can be for politicians to come up with a workable tax regime.
I had originally thought that the idea was to put the tax on aviation fuel, which seemed sensible to me. I presume that the more fuel you use, the more 'damage' that you do to the environment (assuming that there actually is any causal link).
The fuel tax seemed to cover most of the angles as fuel usage must relate to number of passengers, distance flown and efficiency of the aircraft. I would be intrigued to know why this idea was dropped.

I am sad to read about this. I have used Easyjet and found them to be a good carrier. I also like the style of Sir Stellios. Not all of his Easy-this and Easy-that ideas worked but he did try to bring out reasonable services at reasonable costs.

I always book vegetarian meals, not because I am anti-meat but because I believe that one gets a better quality meal by doing this.

Oh dear, how awful it must be being a man these days. I am sorry that some women feel the need to behave in this way. It could be that they are trying to make a point about social equality but i suspect that many of them are just plain rude.

Of course we are being held to ransom. The union leaders are dinosaurs and only have the real support of a small bunch of extremists. But, that is all they need to bring a country to its knees.
This is like terrorism, a small number of people able to punch well above their weight because they do not care about the damage that they do.

Thank you Catriona, You made me smile after a bad day at work.

I have found that it all depends on the day / weather / mood of the attendant etc.
These services are so variable that you just cannot rely upon getting a good experience. I spoke to one of the agents whilst waiting for the car and he said that the job was awful and that people were awful, rude, impatient and just impossible to please.
We found a tacit agreement it would be good without the people.

I have used TAP to fly to Brazil and they were great. I do not know if it is just a Portuguese mentality but they gave the impression of being carefree and wanting to make the flight pleasurable.
Perhaps all the usual jobs worths were having a day off.