The overall rating of a review is different from a simple average of all individual ratings.
Advantages:
Staff try their best in a bad situation, its just a shame about the company they work for, and the flights are cheap (you get what you pay for)
Disadvantages:
Too many to list !
Recommendable
No:
Detailed rating:
Food Quality
Customer Service
Punctuality
Space
Value for Money
Class flown most frequentlyEconomy
How often do you travel with this airlineFrequently
Where did you bookTravel Agent/Tour Operator
SafetySatisfactory
How well does it cater for disabled peopleDon't know
I have quit Ciao and will never return - please feel free to remove me from your CoT if I am in ther...
I have quit Ciao and will never return - please feel free to remove me from your CoT if I am in there.
Member since:25.12.2000
Reviews:56
Members who trust:53
I am a fair person and like to think that I give anybody and anything a chance. However Airtours have tried my patience once too many times.
I travel on European charter package holidays, every year (sometimes twice per year) and have flown with most UK charter airlines i.e. the main ones being Air 2000, Britannia, JMC, Airtours etc. To be fair, charter airlines are not the authority on comfort, style and customer service because you have not had to get out a mortgage to buy your ticket, like you sometimes do with other scheduled airlines. However you do expect a reasonable standard of service! Every time I have flown with Airtours, the flights have been delayed. I have worked in Aviation and I am fully aware that delays are inevitable and in many cases out of the control of the airline. However, when they happen every time, one begins to wonder if there is an underlying problem.
Without tediously reliving every delay I have had with
Airtours, I will explain the 2 worst ones, that have disillusioned me the most. The first being back in 1998, flying Stansted - Ibiza - Stansted. On this flight, the journey out was only delayed for an hour, which compared to some of my Airtours experiences, is virtually on-time. However the problem was with the return flight. Upon arriving at the terminal in Ibiza, we were informed of a 1 hour delay, which eventually worsened to nearly 2 hours. When finally on-board, we thought that it was all over and that we would soon be home. This, however was not the case! About 5 minutes after take off, I noticed that the engines were throttled right back and that we had abruptly levelled off. No-one else had seemed to notice, however with my private flying experience I was quite aware! Shortly after, the pilot spoke to us, and said that there was an indication on the flight deck that he didn't like and that we were to jettison our fuel and make a landing in Barcelona. It was like something out of an air disaster movie - no-one actually knew how serious the problem was, but guessed by the fact that we were diverting, that it wasn't minor! We landed with no problem and were bussed to the terminal. My problem is not with the emergency landing, as I am more concerned with safety than getting home on time. I know that aircraft fly continually, and that things do go wrong. My problem was with being stuffed into a confined part of the terminal with no-one telling us what was going on, and no food or drinks. We were stuck there for about 2.5 hours before getting back on the aircraft. It turned out that the toilet had leaked into the avionics bay - I'm just glad I didn't know that during the landing!!! All we got for our inconvenience was a free drink (i.e. a mini-can of Coke worth 25p)
My second bad experience was a couple of months ago (Sept 2000) flying Stansted - Majorca - Stansted. I had hoped for a trouble free Airtours flight for once, but that would be wishful thinking! The outbound flight, seemed to be on-time. We were boarded 15 mins before departure and were just waiting for the doors to close and the pushback to start. However, it never happened! Time just went on and on.....we saw engineers getting on and off the plane and the departure time passed and then half an hour on top of that as well, before the Captain spoke to us to say that there was "a slight technical hitch" that should be fixed in no time at all, and that he saw no reason to send us back to the terminal. After an hour had passed on a hot plane with no air conditioning or entertainment, we were informed that the problem had escalated and that we were to return to the terminal for our comfort. However after already sitting on the plane for 1hr 45mins, we were already very uncomfortable! Back in the terminal, no refreshments were provided and no information, even though they promised to keep us informed. Eventually, after another 1.5 hours or so in the terminal, we returned to the plane and departed without further problem. We were never told the reason for this delay - we only found out when the resort transfer rep mentioned in passing that it was a problem with the air conditioning. On the return flight, upon arriving at the airport at 1:30am, we were informed of a 3 hour delay, which was bad enough, especially in an airport through the night, with most amenities closed. To cut a long story short, the delay ended up being about 4.5 hours -we didn't take off until daylight, the following day. In the airport, no refreshments were provided once again (I had to break into my foreign notes that were to be changed back up into sterling) and information was not forthcoming. The cause of this delay was that the Stansted plane had been borrowed the previous day for a northern airport's flight and it had of course been late back to Stansted, and this was the knock on effect from that delay.
Perhaps I'm unlucky, perhaps its a problem with Balearic island flights, or perhaps Airtours are too money orientated and let everything else suffer. The latter seems more reasonable to me. Sorry if I've gone on a bit in this opinion, but Airtours is a subject I feel strongly about!
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Good review(-: ........................................................Darko
ampuk2000 22.11.2003 17:24
charter airlines own the smallest number of aircraft they can operate with and so if there is a technical problem there is no other plane to use. Also because aircraft are used round the clock an airline cannot make up a major delay until a couple of days later.
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Dec 26th, 2000
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