Is AirTransat decent??

[riceeater]

I usually fly Lufthansa to Frankfurt, and from there to Bucharest in Romania, but i was looking at cheap flights and saw that AirTransat actually has some pretty cheap charter flights to europe... $940 calgary-munich in the middle of the summer is pretty decent imo.... so i was thinking about flying them to europe, and then catching another flight from there... I priced it out, and even with a lufthansa flight from munich to bucharest, it works out to about $1300CAN total, vs $1900-$2200 through the big airlines.... What do you guys think? I recently watched that Air Crash Investigation movie about when one of their planes ran out of fuel over the atlantic, and they kept saying they werent exactly on top of their game when it came to maintenence and safety and shit... what do you guys think??

Also, any other ways to fly sorta cheap to europe that you know of? Any good last minute websites?

Thanks in advance

[l/l/rX]

i think air transat has been the worst airline i've ever taken!!! I took it to london, uk. I was sleeping and they came around with drinks, the lady woke me up n asked me if i wanted a drink, i was like ya sure, she gives me it and says 4 pounds please...i was like WTF for a small can of pop? i cant believe they made you pay for drinks. what a let down.
Usually i LOVE airplane food, but man this airplane food was absolute garbage!!!
they did have tvs on the back of each seat, but none of the movies or games worked (going there and coming back), so it was a pretty boring flight for that.

but hey i cant complain, i made it to london and back for only $725.

[DJ_NAV]

upgrade to first class !

[LadyLuck]

I flew with air transat about 2 years ago to munich, never really had an issue with them, the only thing that bothered me was that one of their tvs wasnt working properly. Id fly with them again if it means to save a few hundred bucks.

[zoik]

i flew air transat to london last year for oktoberfest. you fly through thomas cook airlines to europe. the plane was big, but they cram as many ppl in there as possible. the seats weren't that comfortable, i had to sit on the blanket to make it bearable, but in the end, for $600 return from calgary to london, it was still a deal. any drinks you had to pay for, but food was actually good

[schocker]

i havnt flown with them to europe but flew with them to mexico. the seats are hella cramped because they add extra rows of seats on to the planes to fit more people, but it was a decent service, especially if you are saving that much.

[LadyTurbo]

I fly with Zoom Airlines when I go to Europe. They don't fly to all locations, but I know they definitely fly into London and Glasgow. Good service and pretty good prices. Worth checking out if you're going to be booking another flight to your actual destination anyway.

[demosticgarbage]

everytime i watch Mayday on discovery channel its always a AirTransat plane.

[Tik-Tok]

Take it from an aircraft technician....

Don't fly Air Transat. I never would.

[98type_r]

I flew them once and vowed to never fly them again. Their seats are way too cramped and zero leg room, but i guess you get what you pay for.

[Tik-Tok]

you can fly Lot Polish too (part of A/C star alliance)

Calgary - Toronto - Warsaw - Bucharest for $1280 incl. taxes...

Good airline, better seat pitch/width than any transatlantic Luft flight... the only drawback is your flying with a bunch of Pollacks.

[riceeater]

i found this flight from calgary to gatwick for only $275 canadian one way, or about $600 return.... i'm thinking flying one way to london and then grabbing a flight from there to romania... Then getting either round trip or one way tickets back, because from there it's so fuckin cheap it pisses me off.... you can fly to TO from there for about 350EURO both ways, or to vancouver for like 600 ish, on the major airlines, the same tickets that from here would cost almost $2000....

I dont care about entertainment, i've done the trip there enough times to know to always bring plenty of stuff to do. Between my laptop, 80gig ipod, a book and a couple comics magazines, i've gotten used to it....

Do they charge for ALL the food and drinks, or just if you want extra? I dont really care that much, just wondering if that's how it goes on all of their flights.

[Eken9]

Air Transat has upgraded their seating to mirror that of Air Canada and Westjet. There was a date when all the planes were suppose to be done.

I took Transat before too and pretty much everything everyone has said, cramped, small and stuffy. Hopefully the new seating arrangements have fixed that.

[riceeater]

Originally posted by LadyTurbo
I fly with Zoom Airlines when I go to Europe. They don't fly to all locations, but I know they definitely fly into London and Glasgow. Good service and pretty good prices. Worth checking out if you're going to be booking another flight to your actual destination anyway.

i'll look them up right now

[riceeater]

Originally posted by Tik-Tok
Take it from an aircraft technician....

Don't fly Air Transat. I never would.

serious? fuck..... damn it..... can you go into some details or is that a touchy subject?

[riceeater]

Originally posted by Tik-Tok
you can fly Lot Polish too (part of A/C star alliance)

Calgary - Toronto - Warsaw - Bucharest for $1280 incl. taxes...

Good airline, better seat pitch/width than any transatlantic Luft flight... the only drawback is your flying with a bunch of Pollacks.

haha, i dont care about that shit, i'm eastern european too All I care about is that it's a safe plane that is actually maintained properly and has decent pilots... i hold no loyalties to any airline, cheapest tickets wins every time

EDIT: i priced the trip on their website, it's 2271.40 CAD!!

[Tik-Tok]

Originally posted by riceeater


serious? fuck..... damn it..... can you go into some details or is that a touchy subject?

Asides from their 2 more famous incidents, there's a ton of lesser knowns that weren't "big enough" to make it into news, every REAL technician (read: not a moron) I've known to work for them has left after 6 months or less. They just cut too many corners on maintenance.

[riceeater]

they have 2 incidents? i only knew about the one when they ran out of fuel over the atlantic coz they had a leak... fuckin eh, so how do they still fly then?? i dont know, i'm thinking in Romania and other parts of the world they must cut a lot of corners too for one reason or another, so i just assumed maybe Air Transat and other cheap companies are just at that level or whatever, so still pretty acceptable.... i'm guessing not?

[Tik-Tok]

Originally posted by riceeater
they have 2 incidents? i only knew about the one when they ran out of fuel over the atlantic coz they had a leak... fuckin eh, so how do they still fly then??

Their rudder broke apart during flight on their way to St. Martin I think.

They're based out of Quebec. Transport Canada slaps them on the wrist and tells them not to do it again. Seriously it's a HUGE f'ing issue that no one will do anything about. Any airline based in Quebec is untouchable until they kill a few hundred people.

[riceeater]

fuckin eh... do they only use old planes and run them around the clock or as much as possible to squeeze as much as they can out of them?

I tried the couple other places you guys suggested, but fuck, for under $300 to london, no one can come anywhere close... cheapest was through that Zoom airline, but it's still over 600 so almost double.... If the price difference wasnt so big Zoom would be the next choice, but realistically, wont they have a similarly slack maintenence record, or does it vary from company to company, not all cheap ones cut corners?