flyingcrazy

How did you get £600? I can only find £900 cheapest using skyscanner.

Nancy Colson

They had some very low promotional fares when they launched the EWR-LUT route. I paid only around $1000.00 round-trip. I'm planning to go back to London this winter and right now their lowest round-trip when I want to travel is around $2000.00.

DavidSchumann

"La Compagnie" is the worst company I hanever choose in my life.

DavidSchumann

La Compagnie is the worst airlines company I have never seen. Many cancellations (at the last minute) and delays London-NY. And management doesn't care about customers and staff too. Do they like women in their staff? Some people told me they have a current trial about that in Paris and may be in NY.
Friend of mine wrote this :
Mark Kahl : Checked my bank account this morning and no, no refund (today was the last of the 30 days that they said they would refund me) so this morning I emailed and posted them a letter claiming €3600 in compensation, then 5 hours later I received an email stating they had refunded me £1000, not the €3600 I am entitled to, so it looks like that website will be going live very soon and if they don't pay me I will be taking them to court. To be honest I really can't see this airline staying in business for much longer, cancelling flights 2 or 3 times a week, not getting back to their customers and not providing refunds when they promise - All in all a poorly run business. Oh and did I mention they lie - A lot ! A colleague of mine who is flying with them in August contacted them and they told him they had refunded me in full, little did they know that I was sitting next to him reading the message they had sent him telling him they had refunded me - A blatant LIE ! Naturally I have copies of all this communication and will use it in court if I need to - Best thing they can do is refund me and get rid of me!
Well, the best thing to do: "do not fly with "la compagnie". There are others very good airlines companies. Why take unnecessary risks?

Thunderroad

Any updates/recent experiences with this airline? A number of posts make it sound unreliable, to put it mildly.

Thanks for any info.

HelloKittysMum

Seems to have gone very quiet. Not sure if this is because things are running smoothly so nothing for people to moan about or becuase no one is flying to give reports.

We've just booked LTN EWR for Decembeyr retuning In January. £1700 return for two tickets (we needed 6 tickets but had to book them as 3 bookings to get the special offer). Economy from Manchester with horrible routings (eg via Istanbul! or with 13 hour sin Dublin) couldn't be had for that price and prices were creeping up. Luton isn't too bad for us (my husband said he'd rather drive to / from Luton than have an hour or two to a hub plus similar in transit and my parents will do almost anything to avoid LHR).

Will post our experiences (I fly EK a lot for business but we also have flown value carriers for leisure (Norwegian to NY last summer and Thomas Cook Premium to NY this year) but are interested if anyone has recent experience

Nancy Colson

I flew them in August, EWR to CDG, and it was fine. On time departures. No problems. I'm flying them for a third time in January, EWR to LUT. So far both my outbound and inbound flights have been cancelled and rescheduled. My five day trip has become a seven day trip. I hope these flights hold.

HelloKittysMum

We flew LTN EWR yesterday (and husband and son are flying today) and overall were pretty impressed with all aspects. Will do a full report over Christmas break.

sachm0

Flew it a total of three times over November-December, LTN-EWR, and was really impressed. Twice was on a newer plane and once on an older one - the newer ones were obviously better but the old ones not too bad.

In many ways I prefer it to BA CW - the narrow body, single class experience beats being crammed 2-3-2 on a CW A380 any day of the week. Luton is easy to get to for me and the lounge has beer on tap which, whilst not quite free flowing fizz, is a pretty decent replacement.

Champagne on board is decent, food was good I thought, service was excellent - and the price was crazy compared to other J class tickets. Highly recommended on the basis of me experience, although I've yet to suffer a cancellation - not sure how you can run an airline and cancel flights so regularly!

Then again, LON-NYC business class only is a notoriously hard thing to get right (and profitable) - others have tried and failed...

Concerto

My feeling would be to try it while it still exists, if you're a nut who likes trying different flight experiences. I'm certainly one of these, but I don't need to go to New York anytime soon. I suspect it's a bit like Ryanair insofar as if everything runs ok, with no delays, cancellations or aircraft changes, then it can actually turn out to be quite a pleasant experience. But even a business class flight becomes a nightmare if all sorts of things start to go wrong, as they often have done with La Compagnie. I don't seriously see how they can compete with the established majors with everything that has been going on. So like I said, try it while it's still there!

HelloKittysMum

We flew LTN EWR 20 and 21 Dec and returned on 3 Jan. Paid £1700 for two and it was well worth it. We booked late and could get nothing from Manchester for that price in economy even going via Istanbul or spending 13 hr in Dublin.

Everything worked well in LTN and lounge was a welcome refuge from a very busy airport. Flights were quiet (34 on 20th and 24 on 21st). Food choice was fine although they'd changed menu from website and had we know new choices we'd have ordered vegetarian for our teenage daughter. Some seats wouldn't adjust but they were sorted manually and there were enough spare seats to move. Luggage was quick to be delivered.

Car rental return at EWR is much easier than at JGK. Xheck in very quick and easy. Lounge in EWR is landside and is too small with poor food that ran out and they didn't tell us it was time to board which meant we were very last to board. Weren't even properly seated when flight left 15 mins early. Didn't eat as I just slept. Bed wasn't that comfy (bit hard) but did manage to sleep. Flight arrived early and luton at that time is quiet so we were on the motorway within an hour of landing.

A few niggles but all in all I would definitely recommend them amd use them again.

jackhorner

First experience (and last). Phone call at 2pm saying flight from Luton cancelled and I can be rebooked on United from Heathrow at 4pm or 6pm

I chose 4 as I can just make it for 3pm.

I have 3 more phone calls with them asking the same question. I say the same thing. They say they will send a mail. It's 2 hours and I've still had no email.

I got to Heathrow just in time to check in and the VERY helpful United staff advised I wasn't listed. I called La Compagnie and after nearly TEN MINUTES on hold I get a customer service person who really doesn't know how travel works. She keeps telling me if I was told I am on the 4pm flight then I will be... however I'm telling her clearly it has now CLOSED and I wasn't ever listed on it.

On one call I asked if I got lounge access if I had to wait at the airport for some hours and they said 'yes of course'. The last call I was told 'there's nothing I can do'

I've spent 40 minutes on the phone and have got nowhere. I've repeatedly asked for my United booking reference and I'm told all they have is a La Compagnie one.

This is a joke - despite TONS of criticism and this situation clearly not being the first time - they have no well designed process for sorting travellers out.

If it seems too good to be true, it probably is rings true.

Hilariously on twitter their campaign is #flythedifference - damn right - different time, different airline and different class of travel than the one i paid for. They have effortlessly and predictably perhaps delivered on this clever marketing babble.

Concerto

This is exactly the sort of nightmare I would fear if traveling on this airline. In theory it should be Christmas Day if they offer to rebook you on one of main carriers, a good chance of lots of points and miles if rebooked into a high fare class. But you've got to be able to make the decision there and then, get them to do the rebooking immediately and make sure you get a booking reference and ticket number if possible.

Nancy Colson

This is so disappointing. I had hoped that they would have worked out their issues by now. Of the six flights I have taken with them, one was cancelled within 24 hours. I was protected on their flight leaving LTN the next day -- full compensation was given. Last winter I booked a 2nd round trip to LTN. Both flight were cancelled well in advance, I was protected both times on flights the left one day earlier and one day later. My five day trip became a seven day trip. Early on they assured me that if a flight was cancelled they would protect in business class on another carrier. That was never an option for me.

mmff

With all these problems, how can this company be profitable?