Greg45

For sure the AF Lounge. But I believe this service is only for the EY codeshare flights to AUH. At least the guy who picked us up wore an EY uniform.

Andoreasu

I agree that AB does do a couple of things well. And I must say their loyalty programme gives good perks. I love the Gold priority seating at the front, the two hand luggage peaces and the blocked middle seat which is not a myth like on LH + gourmet meal pre-order. Agreed, seat pitch is ok, and way better than the claustrophobic economy minus class on germanwings.
HOWEVER, on the route that I used to take for holiday when I lived in Berlin (intra-EU), the flights were with a handful of exceptions quite horrible for the price: filled with families that had not been willing to pay to seat together or do OLCI (big mess onboard), packed planes, poorly mannered travellers...on these holiday routes I don't think AB is doing a good job. If you get a 50€ ticket I guess you can't complain, but I usually paid a lot more than that and still felt like I was on Monarch or even Ryanair for instance. Well I suppose each one's experience varies, especially according to the route & crew, but AB does have real issues about its positioning, between its LCC history of all-inclusive packages, and the current EY cooperation.

awestphal

...went TXL ARN TXL an AB this past Thursday. No families, almost all business / seniors on city trips. Beautiful. C Gates in TXL, from parking lot to gate in under 3 minutes.

Took the early a.m. TXL AGP on AB yesterday, a Saturday. Tons of families with small kids, 15+ min. @ security at C gates in TXL, mad scramble inside aircraft with families spread all over the place. Father of a one-year old across the aisle in a middle seat actually complained that he would have to hold his child on his lap (plane almost sold out) for the duration of the flight & insisted that single travelers in D / F seat would have to move "elsewhere". Crew actually did a decent job of getting the crowd settled down. On these holiday flights, I do not think ANY airline is different as the crowds generally lack experience. With AB, at least, I am sitting up front and have to deal only occasionally with the back of the bus.

irishguy28

Yeah, someone further up said it was only for the Abu Dhabi flights.

Calling them the "EY codeshare flights to AUH" is overkill and a little confusing - only AB flies to AUH from TXL, and all these flights are EY codeshares.

No-one came to the BA lounge when I took this flight a few weeks ago; that said, the flight was delayed by almost an hour, but I headed down anyway at the "usual" time, so someone may have swept through the BA lounge later on. I could have stayed, had I know about the delay, but I'd had enough of the lounge by then anyway.

BAUSER

This post seems to me like a mix of complaints, some serious, some fairly minor. Did you send a similar complaint to AB?



As a one-off that doesn't sound so bad. Now, if you had a few experiences like that with the Chauffeur service it would be a different thing.

What are you talking about? if a chauffeur drives you to the wrong terminal and f**** your rimowa bag up by dropping it and smile its a pretty bad experience? This is AB limo serivce.



There is no structure at the airport for members or business class passengers to board first.
are you saying the airport offers no fast track at all, or that it exists but AB customers aren't eligible? If the former, I fail to see how this is AB's fault. (If the latter, of course, then it's because AB aren't paying for it.)

Usually passengers in BC or F will board first and there is also a structure. AB structure of this was to send everybody on the same bus letting economy passenger board before(they didnt care who was travelling)

My seat were broken,it didnt work fully flat. Flight attendant asked me if he could do it manually for me.. JOKE?
Why did you think this was a joke?

If your seat didn't work and the whole trip just had errors before you arrived to your borken seat would you think it would be funny?

Did you raise this with the CC at the time? I.e. asked them to move both of you to different seats? And if you knew that some of your fellow passengers were bumped up from Y (how, btw?) then surely you could have insisted you have first choice of seats?

I told them my seat was broken. " Sir please wait, we will fix this" meanwhile the whole cabin was chaning seats and i didnt want to leave my gf alone.

Instead of helping they're busy bumping up economy passaengers to fill bussiness. Then after asking them several times they asked me to move to a different seat so my GF and i were separated during the whole flight.
Did you raise this with the CC at the time? I.e. asked them to move both of you to different seats? And if you knew that some of your fellow passengers were bumped up from Y (how, btw?) then surely you could have insisted you have first

Yes you could think so but it wasnt the case.. they helped me afterwards and then i had to split from my gf.

My bag never came to my final destination. I had to take a taxi from Stockholm to the airport for 100 euro to pick this up without a priority tag.
Now these seems like more serious complaints, and something I'd emphasise in any communication with AB. Bags do get lost on all airlines, but why didn't they deliver the bag to you - did you ask for that?

Yes there is no AB in Sweden just Menzies helping them out. I called two days for my bags and had enough and took a taxi to the aiport to pick them up.

I have finally recieved an email from them and i didnt bother to reply. They told me to send bankinformation so they could put in the taxi money. I was compensated with 100 euro on my next trip with them.

I will never fly with AB anymore so i dont bother with all this crap. Its the worst airline i have ever flewn with. Thank god my next trips are with Qatar, Cathay and BA. I hope they kick them out of OW.

Tyrolean

You have been in the wrong lounge. Usually BA staff tells you, that you should use the AF Lounge.

Both lounges are not top notch, so nothing to lose here. The personal assistant only comes to the AF lounge (and the red wine is better there...).

DevilDawg1960

If you search the AB forum you will see that AB is a fine airline if everything goes well but is terrible when anything goes wrong. After an unbelievable expereince with them last year I have not flown them again.

In fact, despite the fact that I am OW Emerald and prefer to use OW airlines, I will not use AB. On my last trip to Europe I ended up using Luftanthsa for two flights instead of AB, and for my trip next week I am using Air France and Turkish Air for a trip that has me in Paris then Berlin then Istanbul. AB was an option that I would not consider.

It is not worth the few miles that I get for these flights to risk the misery if anything goes wrong. As I said, my experience is that AB is okay when things go as planned but has NO customer service when anything goes wrong. When things go wrong is when I need to know someone has my back.

Good luck to all those who continue to fly AB and enjoy the experience. I figure by avoiding them I free up space for those who really like them.

AlienInTheFatherland

Not dis-satisfied with AB at all. I did some 50+ domestic sectors last year and each time, as OWE, I get a seat near the front, with the middle seat blocked and priority boarding.

Always HBO since these are usually day trips ex TXL and I was only once delayed. Not a bad punctuality record.

Did a TXL-MIA-TXL in J eighteen months ago and thought it was really good.

Not quite sure why there are so many others letting off steam here - IME everything has been up to expectations, so I continue to use AB, who are always a bit cheaper on discounted domestic Y than Lufthansa. Points are rubbish on those fare buckets with both, so who cares?

DevilDawg1960

Most people have said the AB is fine when things go as planned. It is when things go wrong that they really get bad and AB has absoultely no customer service. You clearly state that you have not had a problem yet. If/when you do you will understand why "so many people are letting off steam".

I have been flying internationaly since 1972 so have had the opportunity for many things to go wrong. It is the way in which an airline responds in these difficult situatuions that is most important to me and based on my experience AB is at the bottom of the list.

irishguy28

Presumably my BA Gold card granted me immunity from that punishment!

AF is not renowned for the quality of their lounges - and the TXL lounge is no exception. I'm also generally not a fan of landside lounges, although at TXL this isn't too much of an issue because you can usually judge when it's time to head through security.

Bring on the new BER lounges, is all I can say.

Tyrolean

The BA Lounge in TXL is not the best lounge BA has. I used to prefer it over the AF lounge. BUT AF did quite a litte improvement. The BA lounge closes too early for my flights, so I have no choice. You are free to use it, but you will miss the personal assistant.

irishguy28

It's about a year since I last used the AF lounge in TXL -I was a regular there while I had status with Flying Blue Gold [I pass through TXL a lot]. I'll be sure to use their lounge ahead of my next AB flight from TXL. What has changed?

SK2751

I was twice rebooked by AB instantly to a C class SK ticket on a misconnect in TXL. I was initially quite stressed and felt uncared for, as there was not really anybody in the terminal to talk to (they have counters in the terminal, but usually there is nobody in them!). But once I found the counter (airside), I was handled beyond my expectation. All in all, I was at my destination within an hour of the original time. This actually made me book AB more, as I thought that my connections are protected. Now, I read others here, and start to get worried again.

I normally fly wihtout hold luggage, to eliminate one kind of mishandling.

Ber2dca

TXL is the mother of all O&D airports and using it as a connecting point in an alliance network like OW is like holding an important corporate meeting in a McDonald's at 2 am on a Friday night.

I think you won't see what Air Berlin can do before BER opens. If the delay doesn't kill Air Berlin before it ever gets to that point.

Calchas

How much input do AB have into the design of BER?