wanaflyforless

It would take me a very long time to try to figure out how many airlines I have flown (many more than 50) but let me submit two in the dodgiest category:

1) Air Mauritania
DKR-ABJ
Old DC9 making ominious noises.
Forced me to check my carry on so they could steal from it.

2) Cameroon Airlines
NSI-NGE
Old dirty 727
(Landed at different airport than ticketed/announced,
becasue not enough passengers were going there)

josmon10

50 airlines so far (with at least 2 or 3 new ones in the coming months):

Adria Airways.
Air Berlin.
Air China.
Air Europa.
Air France.
Air Liberté Tunisie.
Air Nostrum.
Air Plus Comet.
Alitalia Team.
Alitalia.
ANA All Nippon Airways.
Austrian.
Blue Air.
Britannia Airways.
British Airways.
Cathay Pacific.
China Eastern.
China Northwest Airlines.
China Southern Airlines.
Clickair.
CSA Czech Airlines.
Dragonair.
Emirates Airlines.
Finnair.
Iberia.
Jet Airways.
Jetstar Asia.
Kenya Airways.
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines.
Korean Air.
Laker Airways (Bahamas).
Lufthansa.
Meridiana.
Monarch Airlines.
Qatar Airways.
Ryanair.
S7 (Sibir-Siberia) Airlines.
Shanghai Airlines.
Singapore Airlines.
Spanair.
Spantax.
Swiss.
TAP Air Portugal.
Thai Air Asia.
Thai Airways.
United Airlines.
Virgin Express.
Viva Air.
Vueling Airlines.
Xiamen Airlines.

I haven't had a really bad experience so far, but I remember the China Eastern PEK-MAD flight back from my honeymoon as a nightmare. Some years later I've had to fly for business several more times with them, and I must admit that they've improved a lot over the years, at least domestically.

TheEngineer

I haven't flown on a huge number of airlines but the dodgiest would have to be the Afghan state airline Ariana

Flew from Prague to Kabul via Moscow and then changed planes in Kabul to fly to Delhi. This was over 20 years ago and when we got off the plane there was a Russian helicoper gunship circling the airport!

The "terminal" (basically a few large portacabins) had the top level closed due to the fact that all the windows had been shot out!

I knew things weren't good when we met a BBC news crew who were there to cover the war!

BlassSJU

25 airlines...
Haven't had a really shady experience... IB's old DC10s sucked... as well as NWA's DC9s where you can see the old paint on that weird handrail along the overheads. Eastern Europe (LOT, Adria, Malev) were surprisingly good. Best one... Cathay. Hands down.

Adria Airways.
Aeromexico (Aerolitoral)
Air China.
Air France.
Airtran.
American (American Eagle).
British Airways.
Cathay Pacific.
China Eastern.
Copa. (next week)
Delta.
Dragonair.
Eastern.
Iberia.
JAL
LOT Polish.
Malev.
Northwest.
Panam.
Shanghai Airlines.
Spirit Air.
TWA.
United Airlines.
US Airways.

Spent_All_My_Miles

Flown 73 airlines, excluding regional/feeders and possibly a few defunct ones that I flew as a kid before I began keeping track of such things.

Dodgiest might be:
1) Any airline that doesn't use normal IATA cardstock (if that's the right term) for the tickets and boarding passes (maybe 5-10 of them)

2) Lao Avaiation, as others have noted

3) Eznis, a Mongolian domestic airline. The airline itself seemed decent enough, but maintenance seemed odd. Was flying a Saab 340 from the Gobi desert back to Ulan Bator. The previous day's flight back was scrubbed for mechanical reasons. That day's flight from Ulan Bator picked up the previous day's passengers, so we waited a few hours while a mechanic that was ferried down fixed one of the engines of the plane with the problem. After he closed the engine cover, the plane did a few takeoffs and landings and then they let us board.

zloneill

Air Cubana from the Dominican Republic to Havana, with a stop somewhere along the way. Fastest bus I've ever taken. My nervous friend nearly bolted when she saw the inside of the plane: those floppy-back seats, not very well anchored, and just netting along the bins to hold everything in.

We ate Canadian cold cuts for our meal, admired the Aeroflot logo in the restroom and smoked...because we could.

madman

51 airlines, including a few defunct ones (BEA, MSA ...)
Dodgiest would be Air Moldova from FRA to KIV.

whakojacko

Im pretty boring relatively:

United
American
Continental
Northwest
Delta
US Airways
Southwest
Lufthasna
British Airways
Aer Lingus
Swissair
Qatar Airways
Bahrain Air
Air Arabia

My worst is one of the mideast lccs (2B or G9). Both were nice new planes, but the clientele was pretty interesting (most of them dont fly too much).

On a slightly related note, what is the dogiest airport people have ever been to? Mine is far and away ALY-Im sure people here have seen worse?

Centurion210

Lets see:
SAS, THY, JAT, Lufthansa, BEA, BA, TWA, Braniff, Pan Am, United, El Al, Aeroflot, Eastern, Southwest, Delta, Continental, BWIA, LACSA (DC-6) and last but not least Guyana Airlines.

Guyana Airlines has to be the craziest, scariest airline I was ever on. My father and I were flying from Georgetown to Matthews Ridge in the Highlands. Since my father was the US Consular Officer in Georgetown, he had to fly to Jonestown in response from the Dept of State inquiries to people at Jim Jones commune. Occasionally, some of the people would want to leave and they would be immediately brought out and a temporary passport issued and they were guarded by the Marine Embassy Guard until they were flown to JFK on TWA. On this particular trip, we took off from Timehri Airport but the plane a British DeHavilland aircraft, I forget the model, but it had twin turbine RR Dart engines, developed a problem and we returned to Timheri. They dragged another plane out of the hangar while the passengers stood on the ramp waiting. Then they had to refuel it. Two individuals dragged a 5 50 gallon drums of Jet A over and proceeded to hand pump it into the tanks. That obviously took some time but the schedule was in name only. As the Guyanese say, It is never late when it departs, its on time. Finally we boarded this new aircraft and off we go. The flight itself was uneventful. After the weird experience in Jonestown, we departed two days later back to Georgetown. Onl,y this time we had to wait for the aircraft. The shack that doubled as the terminal had bored agent sitting there who would shrug his shoulders at the inevitable question of where the plane was and when it was due. Looking around I could see a varying cross section of people. One guy had six flats of eggs since there was an egg shortage in the Georgetown. Another had a colorful Macaw on his shoulder that would attempt to bite a chunk out of anyone that got too close. All were patiently waiting in that resigned attitude that eventually they would get to where they wanted to go. After an interminable wait a faint buzz could be heard in the distance and with a raor of propellors reversing, the aircraft arrived in a great cloud of dust (the runway and ramp area was dirt). When the pilot, Mike Channasew, a family friend, saw how many people were waiting, he threw everyone already on the aircraft off and stood at the top of the airstair and demanded that when the passengers name was called, to give up the bag it have it stowed. Obviously he was worried about weight and balance. When he called egg-man's name and he started forward, Mike resolutely refused the eggs admittance on the aircraft. The man spluttered and stated it was the inflight meal. No go. He sold the eggs at a substantial loss to the agent in the shack who still refused to get to his feet after the aircraft arrived. Bird man was allowed to keep his bird which attempted to take a chunk out of Mike as he boarded. Eventually all bags were stowed and everybody was crammed on board. Crammed being a relative term. My knees were in my chest.

The plane cranked up and trundled heavily to the departure end of the runway. Mike crammed the power levers to max (there was no flight deck door) and slowly, agonizingly slowly the plane started to move. I was in doubt if flying speed would be reached. At the last minute, Mike rammed the yoke into his chest and forced the plane off the runway. With the stall horn blaring and I could feel the shudder as the plane wallowed on the ragged edge of a stall, he milked every foot possible, then he shoved the yoke forward after clearing a ridge and dove into a valley to gain flying speed. The macaw gave out a loud squawk and the former egg owner grumpily told the bird to file his compaints with Guyana Airlines.

Finally, Mike started a climbing turn to clear the mountains and he shaped a course for Timehri.

We never agian flew on Guyana Airlines.

CZBB

Handly Page Herald?

jbcarioca

According to my logbook I have flown on 217 airlines since 1967. Many of them are out of business now of course, including some of the worst.

Excluding some of the unregistered operations my worst experience probably was a PanAm flight leaving Beirut in 1975 when we, the passengers, rushed the plane which took off with gunfire all around and the crew sorted out passports, tickets and destination once we'd successfully become airborne. Actually that may be one of the best flights because we all lived and arrived uninjured in Athens.

I have had many memorably bad flights, most of them in either the US or West Africa. None can quite match the arrogance and insolence of a handful of old AA and UA crew members who frequent the US-Brazil routs and regale passengers with tales of how incompetent, corrupt and unsafe Brazilian crew and airlines can be and insult passengers also. From time to time these incidents find their way to the press or courts. Thankfully the crew members who do these things are rapidly dying out...

mrboh

I'm not quite sure how many airlines I've flown in total but I definitely can't match 217

I guess my "dodgiest" airline would have to be Royal Nepal Airlines from Kathmandu to Lukla. For whatever reason, Royal Nepal (and all the other regional Nepalese airlines) schedule flights out of KTM in the morning despite the fact that there's fog almost every day, so our flight didn't get underway until after about 4 hours of staring at white clouds outside. The plane was only a little 15-seater or so, so turbulence getting up to cruising altitude was fun. The most "fun" part, though, is the landing at Lukla. The runway is only about 100m long and sloped at about 20 degrees upwards so that aircraft can stop in time. Come in too late and you hit the rock wall at the end; come in too early and you have a sheer 1000m drop to look forward to. We made it okay, but I believe Sir Edmund Hilary's wife wasn't so fortunate.

A bit off-topic I guess but another interesting landing was on a QF 744 into SYD. We can't have been more than about 50m above the runway when the pilot hit the throttle and steered us upwards. Once we'd gained a little altitude he announced that a light indicating the landing gear hadn't deployed properly was still lit so he'd decided to abort the landing. A few minutes later he came on to say that the light was still on but he was going to land anyway. Hopefully someone on the ground had told him the landing gear was okay! In any event we landed without incident.

Centurion210

I just can't recall.

adamthetraveller

I have 77 commercial carriers under my belt, 93 including feeders (I suppose since they operate on their own certificate they should be included, e.g.: Mesa and Air Wisconsin). Anyway,

Dodgiest:

- Aeropostal (cabin was very tidy but probably hadn't been updated or
refreshed since the DC-9s had been purchased).

- SASCA (only because it is disconcerting to know that both pilots are
asleep!)


Least comfortable:

- Lufthansa (Business is fine, but I would rather take a bus than another
longhaul in Y!)

- Ryanair (as advertised... at least other airlines let your knees hit a soft
seatback! My knees were literally scraped-up just from rubbing the seat in front of me)

- American's Airbus A300 (Never again in Y!). Other AA aircraft are fine - I would
rather fly 7 hrs on an ER3 than their A300s... Thank heavens they are
being removed from service.

MatthewLAX

Dodgiest:

1. Pulvoko Airlines

Tu-134 was like a step back in time--and making some weird noises in the air.

2. Aeroflot Russian Airlines

No sign of FA's when a drunk man yelled at the top of his lungs for minutes, yes minutes, mid-flight.

Yet Pulvoko and Aeroflot are two of my favorite airlines.