Best and worst experiences in Y class

[midcoast1]

As a person who can only afford Y class domestic and international , what are your best and worst Y class experience.To date i found Vaustralia best so far SYD-LAX and return.Worst was Philipinne Airlines on a DC10.Had to stuff tissues in overhead lighting covers to stop rattles.

 

[Nigelinoz]

Worst international was Sydney -London on Virgin Atlantic,lukewarm unappetising food,non working IFE,lots of turbulence and I was vomited on by the person next to me and very disinterested service from the cabin crew-never again.
Best international was Cathay Pacific London-Sydney,although the LHR-HKG leg was on a 747 with the dreaded shell seat the food was great and the service attentive,
the HKG-SYD leg was in an A330,daytime flight which was very lightly loaded and I had 2 seats to myself,very comfortable and great food and service,seat back IFE that worked,very good flight.all for about 470 pounds.
Cheers
N'oz

 

[smit0847]

My best and worst were actually connecting flights with each other which made the differences even more stark.

Best - SQ HAN - SIN. I was extremely hungover from a very large last night of my holiday. I was travelling by myself and was dazed and confused at Hanoi airport trying to work out where I should be going. I almost cried at the boarding gate because I was feeling so unwell but knowing I had a very long day of travelling ahead of me. As soon as I was welcome onboard by the sensation SQ crew I felt instantly better. Perhaps they took pity on me but their service was truly first class. A lightly loaded 747, great food, calm atmosphere and caring crew made for an excellent flight. After a short nap I felt a million times better arriving at Changi.

Worst - QF SIN - MEL. Then stepped onto a 100% load 747 Sunday night overnight flight. No-one wanted to be there. Not the crew and certainly not the passengers. I was seated first row in economy, screaming children everywhere (including next to me). Grumpy, fed up, rude staff flinging meals out of the cart and 6 hours of pointless attempts to sleep with constant screaming all around me. Despite my hangover having disappeared, I felt just as bad when I got off that plane as I did when I arrived at Hanoi airport.

Haven't flown QF internationally since.

 

[AVC]

I think the worst was a trip to Bankok, we thought we'd be really clever and get the front row (46 B and C) for extra legroom. Trouble is that put us right next to the toilets so everyone was congregating, and to our right was the bulkhead, complete with screaming infant.

Best was Virgin's inaugural SYD-ADL flight. As it was the first ever, the crew were in very good spirits and it was a great atmosphere.

 

[StevePER]

Some flights are better than others, but all mine have been pretty mundane compared with this:
IR Aero IRA 1: JUN/11: IKT-HTA-BQS-VVO: Y Cabin — Trip Reports Forum | Airliners.net

 

[Per_Travels]

Best Y flight that sticks in my memory was many years ago when I was heading to Australia (from the UK) for a few months backpacking. Thai airways flight and the leg into Sydney was almost empty (I think there were about half a dozen of us in the back section - all in our 20's). After the food service the FA left a couple of bottles of brandy to keep the party going - which it did all the way into Sydney. As a young man on his first long haul Y flight I thought they were all like that. Unfortunately I got to Sydney to find that my bags had decided to stay on in BKK for a couple of nights but it still reamins one of my fondest memories of flying.

Worst flight - many years ago I did Moscow to Samara in an ancient old plane (Some sort of Tupolev I seem to remember??). If you were lucky you had a seat that worked, several of the seats had broken backs that flopped onto the seat behind. When we boarded there was an almighty rush for good seats and I was left sitting behind one of the broken ones which meant having to spend the flight holding up the seat in front, fortunately it was only a short flight - but it still rates as one of my worst.

 

[Craigie]

Best - Was flying home from LAS. Had a 7am flight from LAS-LAX. Can't remember much of the night before but I ended up at a karaoke bar singing Men at Work in front of an unappreciative audience, in fairness I don't know how much effort I was putting into it.. Anyways we didn't get back to my mates until 5am, we didn't sleep, just packed and went to airport. Can't remember LAS-LAX. Couple of hours layover and boarded a QF flight to SYD. The lightest load I've ever seen on a 747, anyways we were down the back. Straight after takeoff my mate and me snagged a row of 4 each. So comfortable, laid out and slept all the way home until about an hour out of Sydney, didn't eat or drink anything. Was brilliant!

Worst - Dont have one. Love flying too much.

 

[Saji]

I have had quite a few good flights on SQ who are obviously known for their excellent inflight service.

Worst one:

British Airways: Bkk-Syd. staff absolutely rude to everyone, IFE not working. will never fly BA (bad attitude) again.

 

[markis10]

Worst, 747 Domestic leg BNE-SYD, had a very large person with my wife (at the time) and I seated together, was pushed up against the Window for the whole flight.
Best Y experience, anytime I get two spare seats beside me and a call button that gets responded to.

 

[midcoast1]

I know some might have different experiences on Vaustralia but on my experience SYD-LAX was excellent for Y class.Great IFE .Great staff . Ok food for Y .Seat didn't seem to get hard after two hours . It would actually be on par with a flight to Hong Kong many years ago on Qantas 747.Flight only half full so had whole centre seating to lie down for a sleep.Staff were excellent (only 6 pax in our section).Great flight.Return was terrible.Overnight flight , full plane ,grumpy staff etc.

 

[ReLoad]

Worst Flight; Was a Harrah's charter flight in the mid 90's from LAS to LAX, it was on an unbranded 737 that was older than Moses. There was no seat allocation, you were just given a "token" to get on board the flight, stupidly for me I boarded last. The seating was in club car formation with each row of 3 facing each other. The only seat left and my seat was in the last row facing backwards and looking at the toilet door. I got to eyeball each and every person coming out of the toilet. Whilst I resisted the urge to score each persons effort, it was a mercifully short flight.

Best flight; was when I was a child on a family holiday we flew to HKG on CX, I got to spend half the flight in the coughpit with the three flight crew, I even got to sit in the engineers seat for a while, from what is left of me memory the flight crew were all aussies an Ex RAAF.

 

[harvyk]

My best experience, this one time when I went to check in for a Y seat and was told I'd been bumped up to J (and it then kept happening for a while after that)...

My best experience when I've actually traveled in Y (excluding Y in PE seating on QF8) it was a AKL - MEL flight on a B743... The cabin was nearly empty so everyone had a row of 3 or 4 seats to themselves.

I put up the armrests on the other two seats and turned the seat into a "bed"...

My worst experience, there are a few that jump to mind, like the one from PER-SYD where the guy next to me kept on wanting to cuddle up to me as he slept. For the record, I am a straight male who was in his mid 20's at the time, the guy doing the cuddling was prob in his late 40's and not overly attractive looking. To make matters worse, the guy in front reclined his seat whilst we where still boarding and I was placing my laptop under the seat in front. Nearly got knocked out by the seat coming down on top of me.

Another pretty bad experience was a AKL-SYD, it was in a B767, and the seat was pretty much stuffed, and I got sat next to the pax from hell. I finally moved to a center row seat after the seat I was seated at finally gave up the ghost, and was much happier. (unusual for me, normally I hate the middle row of seats on a 767)

The third pretty bad experience was an AA flight from MIA-LAX, it was a B757 (it was the flight which has given me a hatred of the B757), to call it a sardine can would give it a sense of space and freedom. I was squished in, next to another big bloke, with a cabin crew who didn't want to be there, and reminded you that they didn't want to be there at every given opportunity. It was a little bit of a shock to the system after flying J SYD-SFO a week earlier (I don't really remember the SFO-LAX-MIA legs as I pretty much passed out after a night on the town previous)

 

[tuapekastar]

Been a Y flyer most of my life (changing a bit now for medium/long haul, hope it continues). Perhaps I'm not as discerning as some, but I don't recall any sensational flights, nor any egregiously bad ones. Sure there's been the odd rude FA. One QF lady FA, when I did not respond quickly enough with my milk/sugar requirements when getting a cuppa, said "we're not mind readers you know" and not in a joking/friendly fashion either. So I grabbed the nearest pillow and smothered her. On an LHR-MEL QF flight the male FA wandered down the aisle with a basket full of headsets shouting "who wants one?" and literally hurling them at/to pax who replied yes - done in a rather condescending way, as if he was on the farm feeding the pigs.

One flight that stands out in a general way as a great one was actually on a charter flight - British Caledonian SIN-LHR way back in the day. The reason it was good was a female school friend was on it (we were around 16 at the time) and her father was performing 'check captain' duties on the flight. I'm not sure that got us any 'privileges' but I recall we met a couple of blokes a few years older and spent a good deal of the flight playing cards, drinking and smoking and generally having a good time with them - what all 16 year olds should do.

 

[ausi ski bum]

Worst ever was LAX to New York on AA, this huge and I mean huge person (never did work out if it was male or female) sat next to me, they were so big they were propped on the arm rests as their rear did not fit between them, they just leaned forward over the top of the person in front. They could not wear a belt and I was squashed sideways the whole flight and the flight crew did nothing to assist. It was Dangerous and should never have been allowed but it was AA, and they dont care about people just freight.

Best, wellhad a few good flights but recently I flew Washington DC to LAX via denver on Frontier Airlines, I had an exit row but the part I liked was the service, the crew were so friendly and helpful and the aircraft was clean and new. So unusual for an American Airline.

I have of course had the good fortune to get a full middle row on a QF 747 from LAX to SYD so I slept the whole way home.

 

[tuapekastar]

Worst ever was LAX to New York on AA, this huge and I mean huge person (never did work out if it was male or female) sat next to me, they were so big they were propped on the arm rests as their rear did not fit between them, they just leaned forward over the top of the person in front. They could not wear a belt and I was squashed sideways the whole flight and the flight crew did nothing to assist. It was Dangerous and should never have been allowed but it was AA, and they dont care about people just freight.
.

Good grief! That really is nightmare material. :shock:

 

[casanovawa]

Not really too many good or bad memories either, but was in Pisa, Italy and was told the airport was open 24 hours so went out on the bus to try and sleep/nap over night for a 7am Ryanair flight...

Anyway, told about 1am the airport is closing and so had to leave so went and laid on a park bench outside the airport while a lightning storm was going on overhead, an hour or two later some other forced out passengers told me to sneak into a cafe type thing with canvas walls they were in before the authorities eventually let us back into the airport where we all got to sit on hard seats for the rest of the night...

Boarded the Ryanair flight after all the formailities only to be told the Captain hadn't turned up so had to sit and wait for an hour before they found another one... And then just your usual Ryanair cheap and average flight to Porto...

 

[flyingfan]

I've had a fairly sheltered flying history. My best Y experience was probably SIN-SYD on a Qantas A380. Thanks to AFF I chose 80A and was very happy. There was also a WP and partner (maybe both were WP) in 79B/C. Worried that I wasn't going to get my Express Path card I asked a flight attendant who was doing something in the galley; he turned out to be the CSM and said he was just about to come and say hi to me. Nothing special service-wise on the flight but I was pleased to be flying a QF A380 for the first time and the (short as even the pilot said so) flight went by very quickly. In Y this is the only way to fly!

Runners up for worst Y flights would be KUL-MEL and SIN-LHR, aboard MH and SQ respectively although I doubt the airlines made much of a difference. It was just me not doing much flying of more than a few hours' duration, and my body was aching. Nothing wrong with service, especially on MH (recurring theme - service can make a huge difference).

Worst Y flight though would also be the shortest route I've flown, CBR-SYD on QF. My flight was delayed by over three hours - my colleague who was driving back to SYD would have gotten home before I did. I waited it out in the Qantas Club as an NB on a friend's guest pass then, before the airport redevelopment. The CBR QC on a Friday afternoon was of course very busy, and the gates outside was quite the zoo. Not long after this I took out QC membership, finally seeing its value.

When the flight was finally underway it was very rocky and the seat belt sign was kept on for some time. Once permitted the crew began handing out special meals, then meals to J, then to the first couple of rows of Y before the announcement came - "Prepare the cabin for landing." I don't know how they try to do meals on this sector but I swear they do. The rest of us had water bottles apologetically thrown at us not long before we touched down. I felt very sorry for the crew who had faced an impossible task. They apologised for not finishing the dinner service, saying that if we approached the food court shops in SYD, they would provide us dinner. Doubt they meant "paid for by us" though.

 

[agent009]

As a person who can only afford Y class domestic and international.

Thanks for the thread, its good to know the positives & negatives.

In my case I flew Qantas PE to London last year for my first ever os trip. I loved it a lot.

I want to go again and have heaps of long service leave. Anyway like the op I can only manage economy and I am looking at Qantas but think it might be too uncomfortable.

So for those of us that can only manage economy flights, thanks again for the thread and all the posters for their insights.

 

[deejo77]

Best flight was in the mid 90's - I was in the Airforce cadets and took my flight book everywhere and would go up to the coughpit and get the signatures and important info filled in. I was on a flight from BNE to TSV with Ansett and went up for the chat.....we were coming in to land and I joked that this is the time the pilots kick me out......the captain asked me to stay and I got to sit on the jump seat.....quick safety brief (if we go down go out that window by a rope!!!).......I loved the landing (didn't realise how sideways we get on the run way)......was the last off the flight and came into airport on a HIGH....my family didn't believe me until the pilots walked past and made comment...it was great.


Worst - is Iberia - JFK to MAD - half the plane was falling down around my head.....the panel on the window seat kept falling down......the FA said it was only cosmetic not structural!!!! Very happy to get off the plane

 

[yankinoz]

Worse flight was on UA LAX-SYD where there was a coffee leak in the galley and the carpet under our seats got soaked.

Best flight was last month on a packed SYD-LAX flight. I had the aisle seat and the next two seats were empty. Everyone kept asking how I did that and it actually got to be embarrassing as I got to layout on 3 seats the entire flight!