How not to travel in style

Posted by: mista h on 11 December 2011

Yesterday we did 2 half hour trips on the Swansea Park & Ride coach service. Never been on a coach before that had 5 abreast seating(2/3 split). Narrow seats and almost zero leg room. How some of these coach firms can sell themselves as LUXURY TRAVEL in beyond me. One fat cow could not squeeze up the narrow aisle and had to get off. Spent both trips CRUSHED between 2 people who thankfully did not have B O or bad breath.

Has anyone else got a horrendous travel story to tell,either on a train/plane or worst of all a coach.

Mista H

Posted on: 11 December 2011 by Tony Lockhart

Two flights stick out in my mind. The first was Saudia from Dubai to Dhahran. So crammed in that there was no knee room at all, and the overhead lockers were filled with life rafts so that our hand baggage had to sit on our legs. Then they came round with food. In any other region I'd have told him to stuff it where the sun don't shine. The next was on Excell airways to Kefalonia. Awful staff, again cramped beyond belief, and my wife ended up with a few weeks off work because it damaged her back. Luckily for us and them they soon went bankrupt. That was in 2006, and we haven't flown since. After nearly 150 airline flights I detest it. I'll save my patience for a decent BA seat to Cape Town, maybe next year. How can airlines stuff us into spaces that would be illegal for animals going to the slaughter? Tony

Posted on: 11 December 2011 by Exiled Highlander

Mista h "one fat cow" Very nice. Jim

Posted on: 11 December 2011 by Dungassin

I recall one flight (alas, can't remember the destination ATM).

We finished up in the rear seats which don't recline. The awkward bugger in front of me reclined his and there was absolutely no way I could then open the tray for my coffee. I'll admit I'm not exactly slim, but my BMI is <30.

I really believe that seat reclining should be disabled on these flights with very restricted legroom.

I tend to pay the extra for things like "economy plus" on long haul flights. Well worth the money.

Posted on: 11 December 2011 by Tony Lockhart

I agree on the long haul premium economy thing, and we've enough BA airmiles for one of us to go free to Cape Town, return. I'll just go to San Francisco lol.

I once saw a fat bird at Schipol crying because she needed two seats but the aircraft was fully booked. There was a no show, so they juggled a few passengers around and she was ok to fly. Not pleasant to see a girl go through that, but they did say that in future she should make it clear at the time of booking that she might need a more roomy seat. Or an Antonov AN124.......

Tony

Posted on: 11 December 2011 by BigH47

Originally Posted by Dungassin:

I tend to pay the extra for things like "economy plus" on long haul flights. Well worth the money.

I do too, but there is nothing more annoying to find no extended leg room seats only to get on the plane and see them full with kids and small people.

We did find one reason for this, this year we flew to Turkey with Thompsons, online booking, so did what we usually do attempted to book 1 extended 1 ordinary, SWMBO is small of vertical stature, we were only able to book 2 seats. When we queried it we were told you have to book extended for your whole party, So if we had 4 kids that would be 4 extra legroom seats we didn't need and £300 more we wouldn't need to spend. Customer service (avoidence) could not see a flaw in this logic.

Girls at the check in desk said she would have booked just what I wanted, yes 1 out of our party of 2.

We had a very pleasant journey even for cattle class.

Posted on: 11 December 2011 by TomK

Glasgow to Reading with a colleague for a training course in December 93.

It was a Sunday and until we got to Birmingham the train was quite empty so there was enough room to put our luggage on neighbouring seats. It was all quite relaxed and everything was running to schedule. Then suddenly it seemed like the entire population of Birmingham wanted to get to London. Every possible space on the train was full and I'm sure there must have been people sitting on the roof. At least we had seats but all our luggage sat on our knees and on our table while people were crammed all around. It was impossible even to get to the toilets, there was no ventilation and it was unbearably hot and stuffy. It wasn't just busy, it was seriously unsafe.

Then it took five hours to get from Birmingham to Reading. I think it ended it being thirteen or fourteen hours in total. One of my worst journeys ever.