Underwhelmed...Aloha Airlines First Class Experience
 

Hi Everyone. I flew SNA-OGG last week on Aloha Airlines and paid for upgrades to first class one way. Boy, do I feel jipped! I was told that the whole plane was full and that there was someone sitting in the middle seat between my husband and I. So instead of being squished, we paid for first. Upon sitting in first, we realized the entire ROW that we were originally booked in was EMPTY. Fine, we're still in first, which should make the 6 hour and 15 minute flight more bearable.

The food was blah. We got breakfast...choice of Asian omlete or bread pudding, both with a fruit plate. Both were not that great. Then we got a cookie...the same cookie that they serve in coach. That's it for meal service on a 6+ hour flight. We saw the FA for the entree. Then 4 hours later for the cookie. That's it. I felt like I was in coach, but with bigger seats. Before the trip, I kept hearing about ice cream or sundaes being served as snacks on AQ mainland flights (4-7 hours), but not on this flight. What really peeved me was on our return flight when I couldn't secure first class upgrades on *real* full flight, they did serve ice cream. Sigh.

But then there's a 12-13 year old kid in front of us who definitely has ADD. He turned his light on and off every few minutes or so. His seat was reclined, then upright, then reclined, then upright, etc... He also opened the shade, closed the shade, opened, closed, etc. His parents (dad sitting immediately next to him and mom sitting in aisle across the walkway) did nothing. It was so distracting, we could't even watch the movie. Another sigh.

I think that if we would have known that our row did NOT have a person sitting in the middle seat, we would have opted to be in coach and saved the money.

How much did you paid for your UG?

I was charged $300/person one way, but I have a pending issue with Aloha about this as well. (Whole other issue altogether...let's just say I was told one thing, but was actually charged another.)

That's close to a rip-off. For $50 more, you could have flown IAH-HNL on CO's BusinessFirst (gate upgrade for $350) and gotten much more than you did on AQ. :td:

Just curious: if you felt so ripped-off on the outbound flight, why did you try to upgrade on the return?

Because the flight was completely full and I'm pregnant...have you ever sat in coach with lower back pain and it's not like it's easy for you to get up and move about the plane? First was a total rip off, but with option of either sitting like a sardine or with more space to stretch out, I choose the latter. My complaint was that it wasn't worth $300 for just extra space and AQ needs to step up their First product.