US Airways

...I now fly from the US to the UK alot, okay not alot compared to the normal business man but 2 or 3 times a year I have finally decided to stick to one airline and get those flying miles working in my benefit. It just happened at the time I decided to do all this I wound up with a ticket on an USAirways flight. So being a man of my word I have not deviated from them since.

Okay now let me get into some personal opinions about this ...
...from Norfolk, Virginia to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to London Gatwick. I had purchased the ticket from a travel agent so I did not get to interact with the Airline employees until checking in for my flight. Upon arriving to my terminal I checked in at the gate and we promplty boarded the flight on time. Now this was a shocker to me. Once boarding the plane, I took my seat on this little noisy prop plane and flew the 45 minute flight to Philadelphia, ... more

As I now fly from the US to the UK alot, okay not alot compared to the normal business man but 2 or 3 times a year I have finally decided to stick to one airline and get those flying miles working in my benefit. It just happened at the time I decided to do all this I wound up with a ticket on an USAirways flight. So being a man of my word I have not deviated from them since.

Okay now let me get into some personal opinions about this company. My first flying experience with this company was from Norfolk, Virginia to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to London Gatwick. I had purchased the ticket from a travel agent so I did not get to interact with the Airline employees until checking in for my flight. Upon arriving to my terminal I checked in at the gate and we promplty boarded the flight on time. Now this was a shocker to me. Once boarding the plane, I took my seat on this little noisy prop plane and flew the 45 minute flight to Philadelphia, where I switched over to a nice big plane (can't remember the type). Again this plane boarded on time and off we went, arriving in London at 5:50 A.M. A full 14 minutes ahead of schedule, so I thought. This is when I found out that they are not allowed to land a plane before 6 A.M. Well nothing to worry about we made it safe and that is what really matters. The Flight itself was a luxurous, well for a coach class seat. I was able to lay down across my whole roll of seats and still watch the TV in the back of the seat cushions. I recieved my special low sodium meal nice and hot, actually tasty too, while everyone else was getting the standard yucky meal. I must say my first impression of this company was of the highest regards.

Now that you have a tid bit of background obout my initial experience with USAir, I will give a little more information on their flights. While USAir is a reasonably cheap priced flight you will soon find out that they are only able to do this because a majority of their flights are fully booked, and when I say fully booked I mean FULLY. The seats they use are just a wee bit smaller than those that you will find on Delta or American airlines meaning that there is less leg room and quite noticably less side to side room. If you are caustaphobic please take an aisle seat. (Unless you see me then make sure to give me your aisle seat.) On most of their longer flights they do offer inflight entertainment. This usually consists of between 6 and 8 different movies, about 10 sitcoms, some sports related stories, childrens television shows and a few news topics. It also incorperates some games. I have yet to play these games so I can not go into any detail with them, and they have a phone for each seat. This can be expensive. This is for the flights with the TV monitor in the back of each seat. For those flights with the Screen in the middle of each section of the cabin, they usually only offer 1 phone per row of seats, and about 2 or 3 movies per flight. This ofcourse depends on the length of the flight. I would have to rate the movie selection for these flights pretty high. The downside to this is that their earphone jacks are 2 pronged instead of the normal 1 prong that you would find on your everyday walkman or home radio. So with this said it leaves you with 2 choices. #1 bring 2 sets of earphones with you so you can plug one into each jack and listen through 2 seperate sets, or to purchase the headphones from the flight crew at a whopping 4 pounds per pair. Okay this is a bit cheap but where are you going to use these other than on USAIR?

The Staff.
Now that I have flown on about 20 or so different occasions with USAir, I guess I have a decent overall view on how there staff comes across. Other than a few minor squimishes, I would rate their staff second to none. I have called their costumer service help line a few times, and found that my wait time was minimul and that I never was left without a definate solution to my problem or a reasonable answer to my question. They always treated me like I had spent the money to fly in their first class cabin even if I just bought a ticket to for 50 pounds. Next to the Check in counter we go. This is the only place that I have ever encountered any problems at all. I was in Charolette North Carolina, It was extremely late at night and I did not have my second leg ticket for the journey. I had rescheduled my flight the day before and in so doing was not able to get the full flight itenerary from the departure airport. Well it was going to be cut close for me to make it to the next gate, and the person at the desk just snubbed me off. Finally when the manager came out he solved my problem within seconds and got me escorted to my departure gate with just a couple minutes to spare. So this although this one started out rough and got me a little hot under the collar, it all ended up for the best in the long run. My second encounter with some bad personalities at the check in gate came from Philadelphia Pennsylvia. This one was only partly my fault. I had purchased 2 seperate tickets. One from my departure to Philedelphia and the other from Philedelphia to my destination. In order for me to do this I would now have to retrieve all my luggage and then walk from their domestic side of the house to the international side of the house and check in all over again. I did not realize this when I bought the tickets, and will more than likely never do it again unless I save another 500 dollars doing it this way!!! Yap the same flights bought as a single ticket instead of buying each seperately cost approximately 500 dollars more. But as I was checking in the Check in lady was just having a bad hair day and I was the lucky one to get the raw end on it. I don't remember too much about it now, just that it happened and that I was annoyed for a few hours after it was all over with. Now don't let me scare you off from USAir just because I had 2 bad run ins with their staff. Remember I have flown on about 20 of their flights and had only 2 incidents to where it left a bad memory. That is not a bad track record for such a busy business.

Okay now lets move on to the In flight personnel service. These have to be some of the friendliest flight attendants. I could not say one thing bad about them if I wanted to.. I have only had the same flight attendent for more than 1 flight once in all my flights. So to me this makes it seem that every one of there crew is nice and jolly. The seem to cater to your every need. They are quick to respond when you push the service button, and as you see on the commercials they will actually cover you with a blanket while you are sleeping if the cabin is cold. This I know from personal experience. Now how is that for service.

Okay you want to know about the food? As I always order a special food before I fly, it must be said that i might not be the best to tell you more on this. I will say as I did earlier, the low sodium meal they serve is pretty nice. It usually consists of a grilled chicken breast, with a salt subsitute, bowl of fresh fruits and melons, a garden salad, rice, a scone or bread with light butter, and some little sweet snack. I did have the low calorie meal my last flight, because I did forget to include the low sodium with my booking requests, and the flight attendents had one low calorie meal left over and offered it to me. It was just a bit bland is all I can remember. I guess though that I should of expected that being low calorie.

Flying with USAir has been pretty enjoyable for me for the most part. They seem to always be offering specials on their website, and now since they are partnered with a few more smaller airlines they have increased there destanitions by far. Seeing how there are too many destinations for me to list on this review I will tag the URL on at the bottom. I will normally go through there website to purchase my tickets rather than going to one of the more famous web flight searchers. I have found that even though I buy directly from them I am not paying more and sometimes less than these other searches offer. They are normally cheaper than the travel agent that I would always use too. (Depending on the season ofcourse). For the average joe you can not beat USAirs rates and service especially on international flights. I would recommend that you atleast give them a try.

Now my ratings 1-5 (1 being low---5 being high)
STAFF PROFFESIONALISM-- 4

STAFF COURTESY-- 4- would be a 5 but had to k nock them for my two little altercations

SEATING-- 3 it is just a bit cramped for an 8 hour flight.

PRICING- 5 They are always offering good deals

ENTERTAINMENT- 4 Wonderful selection but sometimes you would just like to see more

FOOD- 5 For airline food it is good, compared to food you get on the ground it is not that great at all.

If I left anything at all off that you would like to know more about just give me a message in my box. I would be happy to either answer straight away or try to answer it for you if I can. But if all else fails you can always check out the USAirways site at

www.usair.com

There they have loads of information about the airline, aircraft and almost anything else you could want to know about an airline. I hope that this review has helped you out atleast a little.

Just a little note: I have noticed just in my personal experiences that this airline will go out of its way to help with smaller children especially the ones that are flying on their own, elderly, and handicap. They give them the priority service they deserve. That is a big plus in my book for a company this size to care that much about the ones that really need the care.
 

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