kstupfe

Some observations on first OW trip on AB. Summary, stick to BA and AA in business as AB is not up to the task...

I flew AB J from LAX to DUS, Return TXL to LAX. Compared to the mainline OW carriers, AB is to be avoided. Not worth the tax savings on FF redemption and for paid business, they should sell at a substantial discount (my ticket was half 3k vs 6k for Poland return). The only advantage was the DUS airport was a welcome relief to the Heathrow madness, but that is a small silver lining.

Lounges were ok because they operated by BA and Qantas, so no problems. The business hard and soft product lacks attention to detail. The cabin walls are void of any design or decoration, the cabin dividers are solid white with some scuff marks. It is the most hideous boring airline cabin I've witnessed. The seats are painfully obvious they are used Swiss seats and obvious why Swiss parted with them, visibly worn except the replaced seat covers. The video programming is above average but the hardware is old style tv on arm coming out of center section and hard to position and loud humm in the audio. The seats are very uncomfortable to sit or sleep, no foot support so anyone over 6' tall will suffer ankle pain as your feet dangle off the end of the foot rest JAL style.

The meal service was bad, except the main entree, everything was served together on one tray. The menu gives hope describing starter, main, cheese and desert but hope fades when starter, cheese and desert are presented together. The cheese and desert must be the same as economy, they are bad. The main course was decent, amazing that 5 choices are offered given there are only 14 seats and tasted good. The bread selection was also notable. Given that everything except the main were delivered at once, the meal service took too long.

The flight attendants are over zealous in enforcing the rules. No carry ons are allowed anywhere during take off and landing. LTU crews must be used to battling leisure passengers? Cabin clean up was initiated at least 30 minutes prior to landing, one of my annoyances compared to AA 10 minutes prior or better.

For AA Advantage flyers, note that AB is the only OW carrier where you do not earn your elite bonus miles. For Platinum and Exec, no double miles!

In summary, I would avoid AB in favor of AA, BA or IB. I would slightly prefer BA premium economy to AB business, especially when sleep is not a priority. I hope the Eithad business product will bring AB to a competitive position. Until then, book away from AB.

b100cks

AB was fine for short flights within Germany when I used it a couple of years ago. Unlike a more expensive and bland LH, they served free wine and gave you their trademark chocolate hearts at the end of your flight. Sweet. And prior to the flight they gave away German Playboy with those extra modesty covers made specially for AB. Sweet.

But I guess their flights abroad are managed by a different group of people with that charter flight mentality.

Monty_GER

My TATL experience (DUS-MIA/MIA-TXL) wasn't that bad. Despite the lack of PTV (meanwhile they are installing it) there was no real difference to such a flight with LH.

The general service, especially in TXL has declined a lot during the last five years. But that is probably due to the chaotic situation in Berlin.

TallestHotelInJapan

ABsolutely, flights with AB feel like charter flights. I had a couple of flights with them this year and all of them were pretty unspectacular.

Tyrolean

But that depends pretty much on the destination and the time of the flight.

A flight to PMI will have a different mix of passengers than a monday morning MUC-TXL flight.

AB offers quite an extensive range of holiday destinations (as their root is leisure/charter traffic). If you take an LH or LX flight to PMI you will find similar people on the plane.

mcdade

AB seemed to have done away with the free wine/beer on short haul flights, even the chocolate hearts seem to go away during the busy summer time, I haven't seen or gotten one for a while, instead they offer a candy on entering the plane and nothing on leaving. They still do have the Playboy which you can find towards the beginning of the month.

AB is still more like a discount airline then a full class carrier in OW. They do lots of vacation destination and mange to fill up the planes with families on these routes so you expectations should be slightly higher then a discount airline, but not much.

MattHelm

Second that. You'll find me on MUC-TXL most monday mornings and the only pax without ties are media types. OK, I exaggerate, but not that much...

At least on domestic flights there's still beer/wine, as well as the chocolate hearts. AFAIK there's no free beer or wine on European flights anyway (at least not for the last few years).

Tyrolean

Beer and wine are free on domestic routes (old DBA routes) and were never free on other routes!

yminev

Flying for the first time JFK-TXL on Sept 5 and back on Sept 10. Is there any way to check if I will have the upgraded cabin for either flight?

sebblum

Upgraded cabin on both flights.

BadgerKyle

I'll be flying LAX to TXL on August 31 -- and when I queried AB about the upgraded cabins last week they indicated that they had no way of knowing due to the flights constantly changing -- was that just total bologna?

I hope it's the new cabin for us -- we decided to stick it out in Y to use up the last of our AA miles!

sebblum

As of now it looks like it will be the upgraded cabin on LAX-TXL 08/31.

captainflyer

Hey Guys,

I was looking to book AA award ticket on AirBerlin from MIA - TXL in Oct. Most likely using economy saver, not sure if it was worth it for Business award... at 50K compared to economy saver at 20K..

Is the plane updated with tv screens in the seats, etc. Looking over this post it seems AB is not that great.

Thanks for any help..

will2288

The seats will have new tv screens. AB awards have low fees. For the most part, Y is Y. I would not pay hundreds more just tomfly BA Y over AB Y.