evanderm

Just got off my flight from TFS to DUS and I have to say that I am not overly impressed, but AB didn't do too bad of a job.

This post is a bit of a vent. Tenerife airport, check in was decent. Though the status desk wasn't manned initially, I walked up to the queue and was quickly seen to. I had already checked in but needed to drop my bag. A note for those without status, there are no separate bag drop desks at TFS if you've already checked in online, just the 'regular' check in queue.

Anyway, my bag was priority tagged and I was given the lounge card without having to ask, so far: great!

The lounge was your standard third party airport run affair, on the low side of standard. Can't complain because it's better than the terminal. Can't control the people so I did my best to try to ignore the screaming children.

Boarding was where all sense of priority stopped... There was just one big scrum when the gate door opened. I had hoped that there would be enforcement of the boarding order, but I guess this doesn't apply at outsourced holiday flight outstations.

On board the service was friendly and professional. My pre-ordered meal was delivered first with a glass of water and apologies that is have to wait for the drinks service to begin to get something else. Completely unnecessary to apologize but great pro-active customer service.

The flight was uneventful, though for 4 hours there could be an extra bar run, in my opinion.

Landing in DUS we were assigned one of the closest gates to the exit, so not a long walk at all, but then the wait for baggage had to begin. I hate checking bags, despise it! Partially because of the draconian 8kg hand-luggage rule all German carriers have to adhere to and also because I had bought liquids, I checked a bag for this trip. After about 10 minutes the first 15 or so bags appeared. As mine had been priority tagged, I had hoped mine would be among them. I was wrong. Not until about another 30 minutes had passed did the belt restart (yes the belt had stopped moving) and finally, 45 minutes after we had landed did I get my bag.

To me, that is unacceptable. Not just the fact that there was no priority delivery, but that it took so long for the bulk of bags to be offloaded. Most of what I said here will also go in a letter to AB. Even though I expect nothing to come off it, I feel one should still voice their concerns when service isn't satisfactory.

Anyway, sorry for the long post.

Andie007

I'm very close to AB platinum card this year with tons of C-Class trips on AB, AA, BA and TAM. Overall, I like the AB service onboard. But the pre- and after-flight experience is lacking.

Just some points from my last trip to Europe (both on AB Business)

Miami:
- No priority lane for security;
- Crappy lounge (very crowded)
- No separate 'hello' notice on board (compared to LH where the SENs get a quick intro of the purser)
- Priority luggage took ages in Berlin

Duesseldorf:
- Priority lane for security - but makes no sense as after boarding pass control it's a huge mess again (Terminal C).
- Mediocre lounge
- Priority luggage at JFK was one of the last one (after 45 mins // very annoying as C-Class traveler + global entry participant).

Greg45

I agree with the mixed revues above. Overall, most of my flights with AB were fine. My main complaints are -again same as above- lack of priority boarding (and chaotic boarding in general) and unexcusable wait for baggage (both priority and regular). If these two issues could be improved, AB would make a big step forward.

Another issue fortunately shows its ugly face on only a few occasions: irrops. Compared to e.g. LH, BA, SQ and AA, Ar Berlin is not very well equipped to handle problems. Be prepared to make your own arrangements in case anything goes wrong.

seawolf

Never seen short haul priority announcement. Long haul is YMMV but when it is announced I've seen it enforced.

As for Miami, there is priority lane for security at one of the check points near the F/J check in counters for AA. There are several lounges in MIA not sure which one you are referring to.

Andie007

For the MIA-TXL leg, which left from terminal F (right next to the BA check in), there was definitely no priority lane for passport control or Security just one huge mass of uncoordinated people.
Club america was -to be honest- crap. Left after a couple of minutes. Even UA club is better than this. And there was no possibility to walk to the AA clubs or the other PriorityPass lounges.

Think it was different for the MIA-DUS leg which left out of terminal E.

MichalFKowalik

YMMV on short haul - I can't recall not having pre-boarding

mfk

evanderm

AB seem to make a big deal of it with it being printed on the boarding pass, their you-tube video on how the process works, and it was even scrolling on the gate information screen.

Just a shame that it didn't happen for me.

gkl

most of the concerns you raised are very much airport-related. Although I´m meanwhile platinum, priority baggage delivery happend to me only once with AB, and I think it even happened by accident. Honestly, it also almost never worked for me at OS. So I don´t blame AB much for this, I would only expect that at their home airports, they can somehow influence the ground handling enough to make this happen, but seems we need to wait some more time and complaints by their most valuable travellers for this to happen.

I also have mixed experiences on their city/business-routes compared to the leisure mediterranean routes. While the processes (boarding/on board attention) work on the city/business-routes much better, the leisure routes are somewhat dissapointing and not consistent.

TPJ

I noticed my EY Silver works better for AB than my BA Emerald I believe this was the first (and only) time, I was called by name in C on TXL-MIA, when I credited the flight to EY iso BA..

zappingtv

They often see a emerald Status only as a "GOLD" in the List and Gold ist not so special for them ;-)

flolee

well, AB is fine once you are up in the air. crew seems to be on a more mature side, they know what they are doing and most them seem to really like their jobs - all very professional. Looking at the crew, HG seems more like a kindergarden compared to AB - that said, a kindergarden with some quite good looking "kids" in some nice uniforms

on the ground it's... well, let's say "not the best" experience, though. mostly late, mostly no open fast track security line, horrible attitude from most of their ground-staff (almost only outsourced employees even in TXL), horrendous container terminal at TXL (yes i know, BER hasn't opened as planed).

and it gets much, much worse during IROPS. Last year on a flight back from GOT to VIE i ended up in Vienna a full 12 hours later than scheduled - due to the fact that AB is not going to book you on any other airline for rerouting after a missed connection (well, my original flight was so late that i actually i missed my rerouted connection, too). the worst part of it was the 8 hours in tegel, what a ghastly airport it is in such a situation (yes i know, it does have its good sides too), especially the container part AB is using for their SH flights. also, the weather was way too bad for a short hop into the city. Not so much fun, tbh....

SK2751

A lot of this is true about the ground services, but they actually do rebook on other airlines, even on other alliances in case of irregularities. I have been rebooked to SK twice, and to a C class ticket (from a regular AB ticket).

flolee

that's interresting. looking at 7-8 hours at the TXL C-("container")-terminal (which i did leave to explore the A Terminal, which might have a quite efficient design but it still is a grimm place to be for any longer than a hour) on a freezing cold and snowy day i specifically asked to be booked on an earlier OS flight but have been denied with the explanation that there is another AB/HG flight on the same day (i had a regular paid ticket, no OW status back then though). not expecting too much from AB i accepted without any further inquiry, maybe i shouldn't have.

evanderm

Having never been to TXL it does sound grim. How would it compare to say, LGA?

flolee

i have been to LGA only once, this was 10 years ago and i didn't have to spend very much time there. so the only thing i can remember is the bad shape it was in for an airport of a (the!) major us city. that said, this was at the end of my exchange year after i was generally quite surprised about the dark, cheap way the older us airports were build. i really had to get used to the low ceilings and depressing darkness of quite some us airports (especially as my starting point was the by then brand new T2 at MUC) - so i haven't found LGA any worse than SFO (by then, last year it seemed to be quite nice), DFW or GRR as far as i can remember. but yeah, i really can't remeber enough to compare them but it wouldn't surprise me if they are on the same level.

and about TXL, as grim as it is now, i think the A-terminal is quite effectively designed, very short walks and nothing compared to some of the newer shopping malls terminals where you have to walk for ages and ages (worst: the new skylink terminal at VIE). really bad is the C-terminal though, which is just a plain container from where most of the AB SH flights depart from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_...erminalC_3.jpg

so, no place you want to spend too much of your time in but probably not bad at all as an airport (=place to get into/off an plane as fast and as easy as possible) if nothing goes wrong.