Oh no, an op that I must write with bias... my sister works for JMC... I must write a good review to escape her wrath surely... or will I?!
JMC are a collection of different companies, merged in the recent past, and are now collectively under the JMC umbrella. JMC is now a very large company, and is "unravelling the package holiday piece by piece" according to the adverts. Having been slated on Watchdog and that winking Anne Robinson, I must say I can only write about the airline how good or bad it is, and not the company as a whole… although the health and safety department is the best around… (Was that OK sis?!)
I booked my holiday to Corfu (see previous op) through Golden Sun Holidays who seem to be just an operator and not an aircraft owning company. I say this because I flew with JMC, despite not booking with them. Basically, I had no choice about who I flew with, and to be honest I did not really give a flying duck because it was only a three hour flight.
I do not know if many people realise this, but, delays in airports do not fall directly onto the airlines faulty shoulders. Many reasons can be given for delays such as weather, passengers being late, a slight interruption on one flight can lead to many other flights being delayed, so I was not surprised that we were slightly delayed both ways.
There *****
On the flight out there we arrived at the check-in early, and we greeted warmly by a young lady who asked us a few questions about our luggage etc. very pleasant girl who made conversation with us, mainly because we forced her to! My target was to make everyone who worked for the companies we were travelling with smile, and I was on course. The lady telling us which check-in to go to could not resist the old ‘I can’t remember my flight destination’ joke, and then the check-in lady was laughing as she asked if I had a machete in my bag. I grinned, eyes wide and gave an evil cackle… she asked if I was serious, and I said no, and only my mummy could have interfered with my luggage since I packed…
A good start by JMC, even before we had boarded I had a good impression. Our flight was called and we boarded quickly and efficiently, being met all the way by people saying hello, and lastly asking what seat numbers we had.
The take-off was smooth, and we were soon cruising at 35,000 feet above sea-level.
Moose moaned (understandably Moosie, I see your point) about the fact that the seats headset holes… were two. So, putting in normal headphones only got you sound in one ear. Great if you are deaf in one ear. If you are not you must buy an adapter for one pound sterling. I already had one from a flight a couple of years ago (always keep them!) and so I was the smug looking one on the Boeing 757. Headphones were also available for purchase at £2.50 or £3.00.
As our flight was at 06:15, we were given breakfast as a meal… the one thing I was not looking forward to. I am a fussy eater at the best of times, and mass produced cr*ppy meals are not something I will swallow easily. I wasn’t exactly feeling hungry anyway, and so I did not eat all of the meal, which consisted of:
Florida orange juice, Organic raspberry yoghurt, Traditional breakfast with bacon, sausage, cheese omelette, herby potatoes and beans, Plaited white roll and preserve and Tea and coffee.
Oh right, so that was a cheese omelette… I only ate the sausage which was very nice indeed from the cooked bits, and the orange juice was very much from Florida. I mean, being an expert on orange juice I only need a small mouthful to tell you where the juice is from, and the juice I drank on that plane was definitely from Florida, and not fobbed off as Florida juice when it was in fact from California or Happy Shopper ; - ) and the bread roll and butter was also nice.
We then had a pleasant flight, I chose to listen to my discman rather than watch ‘Meet The Parents’ despite my nod of approval at the film with it only just having been released outside of cinema. The channels available through the plane via their sockets gave a good variety of music, and I did occasionally flick to them to listen to the odd tune, which could have been from many different genres.
The landing was a bit ‘iffy’ and despite knowing that planes are mostly controlled by computers… this was a manual landing - if not then the computer needs checking! ‘Twas a bit bumpy, but we landed where we were supposed to after just a short delay circling the skies, so no complaints really.
We picked up our luggage quite quickly, and were soon on our way to find the coach
************************************************
Back ****
On the way back was different. Well, obviously, we going the other way, what would you expect?! Yeah…
We arrived at the airport after a slightly emotional goodbye after a night of no sleep, only to find that JMC had made a cock-up somewhere along the line, and all the people flying with them had to stand in one place and wait for their flight to be called up for a check-in number. It was very hot outside but that was the only place for us to queue , so we did and got hot. When we eventually decided to gain the ‘f*ck it, let’s go in’ attitude, we stood around for a little bit longer and then queued for our check-in number, which turned into two as JMC had so many people waiting to get onto our flight, who would usually be turning up in stages, not all at once. That took a while, but the JMC reps were very helpful in answering our questions.
We handed in our luggage and went for a drink to wait for our terminal number to be called. It was meant to be called at 12:05… it wasn’t, so we just tried to go through passport control which was manic, people queuing outside the front of the airport, probably why the flight had not yet been called. After a bit of waiting for the queue to actually move, we got through and passed our bags through the scanner…
<off topic> Let me demonstrate how stupid one of us three was - not me - when you walk through the metal detector, you only have to put metal objects (keys etc.) into the dish on the side… not your passport… well, ‘idiot boy’ as I quickly named him left his passport in this dish, then found he had forgotten it just as we were about to board!!! He ran back and thankfully nobody had nabbed it. DO NOT DO THIS!!! THERE IS NO NEED TO LEAVE YOUR PASSPORT THERE!!!
Anyway, boarded the plane again, greeted by lots of smiling JMC workers, and took our seats. This time there was spare seats around us, so during the flight one of us moved into a seat in front of us.
The take-off was… I dunno, fell asleep! BUT, I did not wake up, so it was obviously relatively smooth. Although I did not actually go to bed the night before (mmm…) so I was not a fair judge.
The meal I was looking forward to, as I had not eaten for eighteen hours or so, and had been awake most of that time so… I was happy when the ‘menu’s’ came round telling me I had:
Traditional roast chicken served with all the trimmings and a selection of garden vegetables, Orchard Trifle, Plaited white roll Crackers and cheese Terry’s chocolate orange wedge and Tea and Coffee.
I was given a packet of cheddar biscuits as soon as I got on the flight too, so food on the way back was good. The whole roast thing was really tasty, the gravy was thick but manageable, the roll and crackers were great, and the wedge of chocolate was a bad idea as I wanted more! I didn’t try the trifle… looked like I shouldn’t… I’m fussy, gotta leave something!
Sad as I am, I took these little menu’s home with me so I could write them on here, and they have reminded me that the food was presented in a very fun way, and almost made you want to open the packaging. The papery material the sugar came in (for example) had "one or two lumps of…" on it, and another was "A pinch of…" - salt in case you didn’t guess. The heated food had "hot stuff" on its container, and this was a good impression, shows JMC had actually taken time over a detail as small as this.
The staff were nice, I think I managed to get a smile out of one of the air-hostesses, and on the way there and back (especially on the way back, she was nice!) and they were all pleasant enough.
The landing was bumpy when we arrived in Gatwick, although it was windy so I let the pilot off for that one. We got out of the plane, on time, and got our luggage with no problems.
Finally *******
Overall, I would have to say JMC are somebody I would fly with again, like most planes the seats were a bit cramped, those adapters are needed to use the headphones on all planes and the service there and back was good. The problem with queuing at the airport on the way back is an isolated incident, and so should not really be taken into account too much.
In a sentence JMC are "An airline I would fly with again because of the good service and good meals, with no major problems that caused inconveniences."
Ta
DAN
As for the title... I dunno!
More details
Class flown most frequently
Economy
How often do you travel with this airline
First time
Where did you book
Travel Agent/Tour Operator
Safety
Good
How well does it cater for disabled people
Don't know
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