The Problem of Hi Fly and how to Avoid it
Mar 12, 2017, 3:07 am
#1
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Original Poster
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: Montreux CH
Programs: FB Platinum, M&M FTL, BA Blue
Posts: 11,609
The Problem of Hi Fly and how to Avoid it
This really is an airline really worth making a considerable effort to avoid. What makes me cross is that airberlin gives you absolutely no warning about it, not in the online timetable, not in your booking and certainly not a proactive email informing you about it. You just find out about it at check in. Obviously AB have too many routes, city pairs, and not enough aircraft to cover them.
Hi Fly (5K) is a Portuguese charter airline that flies on behalf of other companies.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hi_Fly_(airline)
I was on an aging A330-200 on 9th January from AUH to DUS which was filthy and worn, and it did not inspire huge confidence as it rattled down the runway and rumbled into the sky. Staff were offhand and indifferent, which seems to be ŕ la mode these days. There is no IFE, just a central TV screen with a flight progress map on it. It was a long flight to DUS and quite uncomfortable with some disgusting fellow passengers (yup, sometimes that happens, but no complaints, because it so rarely happens to me). The plane was far from full, so a full flight would be plain torture.
The only foretaste I got about this was from a VFTer that I met on the NIKI flight a few days earlier from VIE to AUH, but I'm not sure how to find about this short of calling the airline and asking them about every flight on the itinerary. Most of the time I am happy to try a new airline (like the WAMOS Air plane that got substituted in October on the FRA-MAD route that LAN was supposed to operate). I wouldn't have thought to check anyway, I was simply expecting airberlin. But I will go a long way to avoid Hi Fly in the future. Safe flying and good luck keeping away from Hi Fly.
Hi Fly (5K) is a Portuguese charter airline that flies on behalf of other companies.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hi_Fly_(airline)
I was on an aging A330-200 on 9th January from AUH to DUS which was filthy and worn, and it did not inspire huge confidence as it rattled down the runway and rumbled into the sky. Staff were offhand and indifferent, which seems to be ŕ la mode these days. There is no IFE, just a central TV screen with a flight progress map on it. It was a long flight to DUS and quite uncomfortable with some disgusting fellow passengers (yup, sometimes that happens, but no complaints, because it so rarely happens to me). The plane was far from full, so a full flight would be plain torture.
The only foretaste I got about this was from a VFTer that I met on the NIKI flight a few days earlier from VIE to AUH, but I'm not sure how to find about this short of calling the airline and asking them about every flight on the itinerary. Most of the time I am happy to try a new airline (like the WAMOS Air plane that got substituted in October on the FRA-MAD route that LAN was supposed to operate). I wouldn't have thought to check anyway, I was simply expecting airberlin. But I will go a long way to avoid Hi Fly in the future. Safe flying and good luck keeping away from Hi Fly.
