Not my First Choice - UPDATED
 May 3rd, 2001
(Jun 29th, 2001)
Advantages:
Cheap, good in - flight movies, on time departure
Disadvantages:
No veggie meals, paying for a stupid adapter !
Recommendable:
No
Detailed rating:
Food Quality
Customer Service
Punctuality
Space
Value for Money
more
  moose
About me:
Member since:14.11.2000
Reviews:140
Members who trust:463
Review rated by 106 Ciao members on average: very helpful 
UPDATED BIT AT THE BOTTOM! In the first of a sequel of holidays ops by moose, I present to you.......Air 2000! Ok, most of you will know that I have just arrived back from my hols to Crete (thanks for all your 'happy holiday' wishes; I had a great time!). I have decided to start on the airline as this is the part of my holiday that I enjoyed the least!
Air 2000 are part of First Choice Holidays plc (which also includes Sovereign, Hayes & Jarvis and Unijet amongst others). So, if you book a First Choice holiday chances are that you may fly with Air 2000. Their web site, which is thoroughly informative I may add, proudly states that Air 2000 have won the award of 'Best UK Charter Airline 2001' by Travel Weekly Globe. Hmmm...I would like to disagree. Firstly I cannot fault the actual organisation and efficiency of passenger boarding and disembarkation of the aircraft - this is one of my first flights that has been on schedule. But I can fault several aspects of my journey. I didn't actually choose to go with Air 2000 - as a charter flight it was the allocated carrier.
Anyway on to my grumbles!! Firstly, I was very annoyed at the fact that I had to buy an 'adapter' to be able to use MY OWN headphones in order to watch the in-flight movie. I could understand them charging for headphones (at £3 a pair) if you didn't have you own, but what I do object to is being charged £1 (its the principle!) to use my own pair! Instead of having one socket, they have designed their seats with two sockets so you have to buy an adapter. Totally pointless
design of the socket and blatantly obvious that it is to make money from selling very simple plastic 'adapters'. Another major grumble on my outbound journey was the toilet facilities. They had one at the front of the airbus I was on, and two at the rear. Not good, but ok for the 233 passengers on board? Wrong! They stuck an 'out of action' sign on the front toilet from the moment of boarding so that all the people at the front of the aircraft had to negotiate their way down the narrow aisle to reach the rear toilets. This is not the best of situations as you could not always see the length of the queue at the rear of the plane. You would get there only to be turned back by a trolley dolly who moaned that no more than 3 could queue at once!
However, this would be ok...if only the toilet WAS 'out of action'. No! On both my flights all of the crew happily used the front loos - you could even hear them flush!! (I was on row 2!). I never realised that they actually had staff toilets on cheapy airlines. Obviously the staff at Air 2000 have found a way around this. They tried to 'cover up' their little scheme and stop people wandering through with a curtain across the gangway. I was sitting most of my journey cross legged and fuming! Ok, on to next point! "10,000 meals are served on each Boeing 757 every week" the web site boasts. Errr....make that 9,999 as I certainly didn't get mine on board the 757 I returned on! I am a veggie and I had no problems with getting a suitable meal on my outbound journey. On the way back it was another story! I reminded the check in desk, like I was asked to do before boarding the plane. An announcement came over once we had taken off "breakfast will be served in about an hour". Ok, the meals aren't particularly nice but it does help the boredom factor to count how many baked beans you have been given!
The smell is actually quite enticing! I got ready to be served my veggie sausage, beans, egg etc, placed my little tray down in anticipation......only to be told that they didn't have any vegetarian meals on board but would I like an orange juice instead! So when all my fellow meat eating passengers were tucking into their bacon butties I was sipping orange juice! I was not a happy bunny! I am so annoyed with the actual on board service that I have just written a letter of complaint to their customer relations team. I told you their web site was informative....thats where I found their address for my complaint letter! (www.air2000.co.uk if anyone else has any complaints!).
I was happy with some aspects of the service however (it is not all bad!). I did like being able to watch an in-flight movie to pass the time (I didn't like the fact that I had to purchase the adapter though!). Some short haul flights do not offer this facility. The movies were quite recent too; Charlies Angels and Meet The Parents. They have also responded to the deep vein thrombosis threat. They now show a 5 minute video 'Air-obics' consisting of exercises you can do to help prevent this condition. I did actually join in (although not many did!) for the novelty factor, however I think they forgot that in reality you actually only have a few inches of space between you and the next passenger! Good idea - some of the exercises are achievable!
Anyway, to conclude, I don't suppose I can't complain too much. You pay for what you get. On a holiday costing £189 including accommodation I am not going to get a champagne breakfast! (on cattle class you are lucky if you get ANY breakfast!!). I have been on better charter flights and I suppose all have their bad days. I will be updating this opinion, if and when I get a reply from their customer relations team....cross your fingers for me that they offer 6 weeks in Bali compensation!!!!!! So for now only 2 stars, watch this space........ UPDATED 28 JUNE 01
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Now this op has been picked for PF allocation - I had better let you know of the result of my complaint letter! I received a reply from their customer services manager letting me know what had happened on my flight (and to be honest I don't think his reply was good enough - see what you think!).
The loo facilities - apparently staff do NOT have separate loos and in fact the loos were reported to have had a fault on our flight. Therefore the staff obviously felt it in the best interests of the passengers to put an 'out of order' sign on the door. IF they were in fact 'out of order' - why the hell were the staff using them? Maybe the loos couldn't cope with ordinary passenger (cattle class) sewage?!?! I THINK THIS IS A COMPLETE AND UTTER LIE! I hate being fobbed off and in this case I feel I was. I heard the loo flushing adequately - I'm sure the staff wouldn't have used it had it been blocked/flooded or whatever else deemed it 'out of order'. Complete crap! (in more than one sense of the word!). The headphone socket - fobbed off again! Apparently this is common practice nowadays on flights. Hmmmm....so is this to increase your profits????!?!? I think so!
The veggie meal (that never was) - fobbed off yet again! It wasn't apparently their fault (but I thought I was flying with you?!?!). It was the fault of the caterers in Crete! Anyway, they also do not guarantee specific meals (a good clause to use for anything!). So, if I had a nut allergy would they have placed a nut roast in front of me? - possibly so! So beware. Overall, I feel totally fobbed off by the letter I was sent in reply. They didn't even apologise - just kind of shifted the blame off themselves. I didn't expect any compensation - after all the holiday was only £189 - but what I did expect was at least an apology rather than a load of feeble excuses!
Unfortunately, as I like last minute bargain holidays, I may end up travelling with them again - but by choice - NO WAY! © moose
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12.04.2009 15:32
Well done on the diamond xx
17.11.2004 13:37
Just come back to re-read this, as I am due to be flying with them shortly, and have been having terrible problems as they decided to move our flights not once, but TWICE, after giving them absolute hell we are now back on the original flights, but I have now discovered that BA have dropped their prices and flying out and back the same day - very tempted. Incidentally, Britannia (or Thomson Flights as they are now known) now charge for headphones, well deserved diamond - still can't make up my mind what to do :( Sue
21.11.2003 18:52
excellent op - i have flown with them once from Birmingham to Gran Canaria and it was a good flight.