Anyone flown ST partner Air Europa in J recently?
 

Hi all. Has anyone flown Air Europa long-haul J recently? I had no choice this time because UX was the only DL partner that had a J award seat for the low 100K reward for my specific travel dates, but I'm a bit nervous about it. Please share your thoughts. There appears to be very limited information about the new UX J long-haul product, which according to seat maps should be available on the JFK market. Thanks.

I have not, but a blogger that I enjoy reading has reviewed Air Europa in the past (and he is a contributing member to FT): http://thepointsguy.com/2011/07/air-...ions-were-met/

Thanks! I had actually found the same report, but UX has a new J class with flat beds now (A330-200s went from 24 J/4 rows to 18 J/3 rows) and the problem is that there seems to be no reports on the new hard product. :(

Some reviews here but no recent long-haul J: http://www.airlinequality.com/Forum/air_europa.htm

Overall, it sounds pretty grim.

Award seats seem plentiful on UX on JFKMAD but the YQ is shockingly high.

Lots of posts are returned when using 'europa' as an advanced search term constrained to the last year. The posts aren't uniformly flattering of the UX flight experience, but that's no excuse for failure to search by a long-time FTer - it disrespects the efforts many have made to post about their experiences.

But now that there is another thread on the topic, this thread will be among the first results if one tries the correct keywords. I have found, personally, that searching the DL forums results in having to look through MANY threads bashing the OP for not searching, yet contain no meaningful content or links.

Perhaps we could start posting links to the best threads instead of just bashing the OP for not searching so that future searches on the topic will be more productive? :)

When was the new J product introduced? I was on a long haul UX flight a few months ago and the cabin was still the same, 4 rows/24 seats. I am also booked on another UX flight in November, and my flight still shows the old J configuration, perhaps the A330 with the new configuration doesn't fly my route. Still, don't get your expectations high in terms of soft product.

Alitalia had one of the worst J productscfor a while. They refurbed their 777s and A330s, and have gotten great reviews on seats and service. Perhaps UX is the same. I could see how having a run down and dilapidated cabin could rub off on the FAs, and a brand new top of the line cabin might inspire them to up their level of service.

All this is speculation though, but if you take the plunge and come back with a trip report then we can all know whether it's improved or not :)

Edit: I found a press release from Jun that said they were only modifying 2 of their a330s. Doesn't sound promising for being on the new product. It's being done by AF/KLM so I figure it will be the newer angled lie flats that are on the AF a380?

Edit2: looks like the seat map can indicate which product you'll have
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/other...330-200-a.html

My JFK MAD flight shows 3 rows in J. I also looked on youtube and found a very short video showing that the new 3-row J cabin is located between doors 1L/1R and 2L/2R so that's sufficient space for full flat beds (e.g., when LX had A330-200s, F had full flat beds in 3 rows in the same space) since it seems UX not only changed the seats but also removed one row to allow greater recline.

Really? My itinerary includes both UX and AZ and I thought the large YQ surcharge was coming from AZ, not UX.

Per my post last night at 12:47 a.m, there are no solid reports on the new UX J product, so please have the courtesy to not write anything if you are overly tempted to engage in rude and surly behavior that certainly isn't useful to anyone. Thanks.

There shouldn't be YQ collected for AZ on itineraries originating outside Europe, so it likely is UX.

In my itinerary, the only leg operated by AZ is MXP-JFK. The DL reservation agents weren't sure about which carrier was charging the high YQ. The O&D of the ticket is FLL-CDG-FLL.

What's the full routing and class of service?