US Airways

When I went to Florida last month I booked tickets with US Airways. I have never flown with them before and thought it would be a good experience to try an American airline.

An added experience was we had to change flights at Philadelphia but I thought this would be a simple process and would be in line with what I had previously been used to.

The cabin crew staff were friendly and polite and the service they provided throughout the flight could not be faulted. The aeroplane itself was small but clean. The seats were average for economy but there did not appear to be as much leg room as we had hoped. There were small television screens in the headrests of the seat in front of us and we thought this was great as we would be entertained throughout the journey.

We noticed there were no headsets available and after takeoff we discovered that headsets were an extra which we would have to pay for. Headsets were being charged at US$3.00 each which admittedly was not a lot and you could keep them but how often do people re-use their headsets again after a plane journey? I thought it was slightly unreasonable to be charging customers who had paid for the flight to pay to use the entertainment when the previous airlines I have used have always provided this facility free of charge. Luckily I had a book to read and slept part of the way through the flight.

The meals provided by the airline was pretty good and tasty. We got a main meal, salad, a small portion of fruit and dessert and this pretty much filled me up as with flying I don’t have much of an appetite but I still need to eat to settle my stomach.

The airline provided water, juice, soft drinks, tea and coffee free of charge. Alcohol was charged at US$7.00 for the tiny bottles which I thought was a little expensive and so did the people I was travelling with. We thought with a big airline alcohol would be provided free of charge but not so with US Airways.

As I said earlier we had to change flights at Philadelphia. Not being an American citizen we had to fill out two immigration cards but these were handed out to us on the flight by the cabin crew. Once we had gone through immigration we had to collect our luggage from the luggage carousels. I thought this was a bit odd as in the past other airlines had transferred my luggage to a connecting flight and I picked it up again when I had arrived at my destination.

Unfortunately, we had a faulty carousel and it took longer than usual to collect our luggage. We were naturally worried as we had a connecting flight to catch and we didn’t want the added frustration of waiting an unknown time for our luggage. The member of staff there apparently handling the situation was unhelpful and rude and after about half an hour decided to transfer the bags to another carousel. By this time one lady had missed her connecting flight and tempers were short as we still needed to catch our connecting flight.

We found our luggage and had to transport these ourselves to another area so it could be loaded onto our connecting flight. Once that was loaded we had to go through the security checks even though we had not stepped out of the airport. This was again time consuming but necessary and once this was done we had just enough time to walk to our connecting flight.

The connecting flight was only about two hours and only drinks were served and this part of the flight was uneventful but pleasant. I wasn’t particularly looking forward to doing the whole luggage collection again on the return journey but when the time came we discovered our flight with US Airways had been cancelled due to a maintenance problem and we had be put on a direct flight with Virgin Airways.

US Airways were efficient but a lot of the extras they wanted us to pay for I felt should have been included in the service. These minor inconveniences haven’t put me off and I would be willing to fly with them again but there are probably better airlines out there.