Openskies misery
New poster. I signed up just to comment on this rather disappointing experience.
I booked a flight JFK to Orly on Openskies having read some very favourable reviews. I booked in what they call Biz Seat and maybe some of you who have used them recently can tell me if this is the norm.
Firstly the seats look nothing and I mean nothing like the seats shown on the website. The plane is purple and black. Think a mix between a funeral parlour and a disco and you've got some idea of what it looks like. There is no curtain between the front cabin and my cabin which the purser told me is a French law. Never heard the like before! The cabin crew were French and even though Openskies is supposed to be part of BA they don't wear a BA uniform. I asked the purser about it and she told me that they were L'Avion and that L'Avion has taken over OpenSkies so it's now a French airline and they're getting rid of all the old Openskies New York crews.
Once you're in a window seat, if your seat neighbour in front reclines his seat and the one next to you puts his footrest up, which incidentally you have to force up with your hands, there is no way to get out.
There were no amenity kits, no menu and it took over an hour to get a drink after we took off. It took over two hours for the meal service to be done and by the time my tray was taken away I'd been stuck in the seat for a staggering three hours. You can't watch the IFE as there is no way to use it other than to put it on your tray, which obviously during the meal you can't. The food was adequate but served on plastic, wine was warm.
Later on during the flight I wanted a drink. I hadn't seen the flight attendants for some time so woke my neighbour to climb over him to go the galley. No one there! I walked to the front and again couldn't find a soul. It was like the Marie Celeste. I went back again thinking they had to be somewhere and saw the two girls fast asleep in the back row snuggled under duvets complete with headphones, socks and eyemasks! The third girl finally came out of the cockpit (there were only three) and reluctantly gave me a cup of water. I told her that the other two girls were asleep and she told me that it's a French airline and they must be awake for landing so they sleep during the flight. Well that's all well and good and I'm no expert but what would have happened if someone had a heart attack or had a sneaky smoke in the loo and no one's awake to treat people or put out fires?
This next part had me seriously worried. I asked her if we would be landing on time and she said she would check with the pilots after they woke up! Surely they couldn't both be asleep? They only had two pilots onboard. Shouldn't there be three if they are sleeping?
Thankfully I was flying back to LHR after my Paris trip as I would have cancelled a return booking.
I'll be writing to BA but is this an isolated experience or the norm?