Its like being turned down by someone you most like!

Ever had that experience?

I just asked Emirates, my favourite airline, for a “status match” with Qantas where I hold  Gold Frequent Flyer Status. One of the difficulties of being “high status” with one airline is that it does “lock you in”.

Gold Status comes with express check in, lounge access, bonus frequent flyer points and higher luggage allowances. I have Blue Status (the basic level with Emirates) because I frankly haven’t flown them enough. They don’t fly on most of  the routes, I have been frequenting.  In addition, when they are on a sector I am flying and I can choose between them an airline I have status with… there’s obvious reasons why thats not usually not attractive.

My travel to the Middle East and Europe is ramping up. So I asked Emirates for a “status match”. i.e. automatically granting me elite status with them in return for my flying them more often. Airlines do this with an expectation is that once you have been granted the status, you will transfer a chunk of your loyalty (or all of it) to the new airline. Some airlines don’t officially match, others offer them reluctantly and others use it as a competitive tool.

I can see why some airlines are reluctant to use it. They have got to think: “how loyal is that customer really going to be?” When will they rush off to someone else to get a match?

I can also see why others embrace it. It costs nothing for the airline to match a status until the passenger flies and when they use the service, they are actually paying for their ticket. And to keep the status, they will keep on flying.

The deal with Emirates is that said “no”. ie they turned me down! Jilted by my favourite airline!

Not the end of the world for my Middle Eastern trips. I am also Gold with Virgin Australia and that gives me status at Emirate’s rival Etihad so guess who I will be sampling?

Anyone had success with Emirates status matching?

Dawn in the air

In the film: Up in the Air, George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a guy with the goal of earning one million miles with the one airline.

Today, I reached the milestone of one million miles in the air (1.6 million kilometres).  My life does not completely rsemble Clooney’s movie character, however. I actually love being home and I like people but I do like my elite statuses: 

• United Airlines Gold
• Virgin Blue Gold
• Qantas Platinum 

I measure my air life at a great flight tracking tool called FlightMemory.  My friend Tony, who passed away two years ago entered almost 500 flights into the Flight Memory system for me  as a Birthday present. RIP Tony, I miss you. So here is the summary:

You will note, that one million miles represents 40 times around the earth. It is the same distance to the moon and back – twice.

On Board Singapore Airlines A380- my first ever A380

To get to one million miles, I have flown 719 times between 1968 and 2011 on 73 airlines.  One third of my flights have been with Qantas and one tenth with United/Continental.
Some of the airlines I have flown are now:

•  now broke and gone eg Ansett, Independence 
•  morphed eg BOAC into British Airways
•  taken over eg Northwest, Impulse
• much better eg Virgin Blue
• much worse eg United

Most loved airlines are:  Emirates, Virgin America, Air New Zealand and Jetblue

Most hated airlines include:  Ryanair, Delta and United (the irony of having Gold Status with them)

I took this while on a 3 mile run from my LAX airport hotel

I have been transported to 177 airports in 34 countries on five continents. Interestingly, I have been to 46 countries in total in my life with some places visited by train or bus only. Not surprisingly,  two Australian  airports Sydney and Melbourne account for about 40% of all my airports visited. I have been to 54 airports only once. Airport highlights:

• Most northern airport: GRY, Grimsey, Iceland 
• Most southern airport: IVC, Invercargill, New Zealand 
• Most eastern airport: NAN, Nadi, Fiji 
• Most western airport:  APW, Apia, Samoa
• Most visited airport: MEL, Melbourne, Australia
• Favourite airport: SIN, Singapore, Singapore
• Most despised airport: LAX, Los Angeles, USA

I have used 48 different types of planes:-
All the boeings: 707, 717, 727, 737, 747, 757, 767, 777
Airbus: 300, 310, 319, 320, 330, 340, 380
DC 8, 9, 10
Canadairs, Embraers, Fokkers, Saabs. I even been on a Zepplin.
NB Two of those planes, the 737 and 767 represent almost half of all the planes I have flown on!
The only planes not flown are Russian planes eg Tupolovs etc
I love the 777 and A380. I have loved my flights with six exceptions eg having flown through a thunderstorm in a Beechcraft- never again.

I am so fortunate to have seen the sights that I have seen:
Europe : Bruges, Mont St Michel, Taize, Venice, Tour Eiffel, Paris, WW1 Belgian war-fields, Krakow Market Square, Koln Dom, Bilbao, Reykjavik, Auschwitz
USA: Mt Rushmore, Devil’s Tower, Cape Canaveral, climbing statue of Liberty, Grand Canyon,Yosemite, New York, Chicago, Boston, Portland ME, Portland, OR
Middle East: Bethlehem, Nazereth and Jerusalem,
Australia: Great Barrier Reef, Ningaloo, Uluru, kangaroo Island, Coober Pedy, Brokjen Hill, Lake Pedder, The Pinnacles, Uluru, kakadu, Wave Rock,
Canada: CN Tower, Toronto Islands,
New Zealand: Milford Track, Queen Charlotte Sound
Tropical Islands: , Fiji, Hawaii, New Caledonia and Samoa.
Waterfalls: Niagara Falls, Victoria Falls, Russell Falls, Gullfoss
Musuems; Anne Frank House, British Museum, Frick Collection, Guggenheim, Holocaust Museum DC, In Flanders Fields Museum, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Musee d Orsay, NGA Canberra, Powerhouse Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, SFMOMA, Smithsonian, Vatican, Yad Vashem

The best part of the travel. Making and staying friends with people who live from the USA to Argentina, from New Zealand to New York, to South Africa Thanks for sharing the journey with me!

Finally, for the last ten years, I have been offsetting my travel buying trees to absorb carbon pollution. Not the best solution but a start. I now offset 110% of my carbon output.

So whats my goal? Another million miles? Not sure yet!

Blog readers will know that I love the A380 SuperJumbo currently in service with 5 airlines:

• Air France
• Emirates (I flew their A380 in 2010 and loved it)
• Lufthansa (hope to fly this in July)
• Qantas (see the blog post about my  2010 fabulous A380 flight)
• Singapore Airlines (flown 2010)

Photo Credit David Barrie

Showing its colours at Toulouse is the Airbus A380 belonging to the sixth airline to have it,  Korean Air Lines. This is a company that I have never flown because of their dubious safety record (wikipedia: Korean Air had a relatively high accident rate between 1970 and 1999, during which time it wrote off 16 aircraft in serious incidents and accidents with the loss of 700 lives). Korean Air is a founding partner airline of SkyTeam, the world’s second largest airline alliance along with Air France-KLM and Delta. It is one of only nine airlines to fly to every inhabited continent.

Korean will start flying A380s in May, 2011 to Japan and East Asia. This will be followed by Korean’s US and European routes in August, 2011. Korean Air have said they will have five A380s by the end of 2011 and then another five from 2012 to 2014

 Korean Air’s A380 will only have 407 seats in total on board. This is the least number of seats out of all the airlines (Qantas 450, Singapore 471, Emirates 489/517, Air France 516/538, Lufthansa 526).

Of those seats Korean will have 12 KOSMO First Class seats and 301 economy seats on the lower deck. On the upper deck will be 94 Prestige (Business class seats) which will have to be a very spacious affair. No other carrier has done this.

China Southern will also add A380s in 2011 with Thai, Malaysian and Qatar flying them in 2012

So in 2010, I flew 90 times with my 90th flight for the year  on 31st of December 2010 bringing my total air distance for the year to 202 000km (120 000 miles).  I feel that gives me some qualifications for the following subjective rankings.

Best Airlines

I have confessed a few times in this blog that my favourite airline in the world (out of the 70 I have flown) is now Emirates. 

1. Emirates – all round amazing customer service product- friendly, amazing food, attention to detail
2. Air New Zealand, an efficient and friendly operator- I love the fact they still give sweets/candies/lollies as you come into land
3. Lufthansa- -my perception of the German flag carrier is that they would be unfriendly and intimidating-far far from it- and the food is amazing
4. Singapore Airlines-while I have some reservations over their safety, Singapore is a baseline for being a good airline-boo hiss for them introducing fees for exit row seats
5. Lan – my other surprise for the year was discovering what a classy offering this airline is
6. Virgin America- everything about this airline is class
7. JetBlue- a US Carrier that are a pleasure to fly with
8. Qantas- its a worry when an airline that I used to put at the top three is at number 8. My perception along with many other loyal passengers is of an airline that has lost its service crown
9. Cathay Pacific- Cathay keeps earning awards for being the best. I have always regarded them highly but I think their product is slipping
10. British Airways-following the crowd in a decline in service  but still in my top ten
11. Southwest and Air Tran, , two US carriers that are in the process of merging share 11th spot for different reasons, Southwest’s fun, straightforward service earns them respect and AirTran has some really good standout features. I will be sorry to see them go

Not tried Etihad yet who are ranked best airline in world by skytrax

Worst Airlines

1. Air Zimbabwe- I have not actually flown them for a while but their continuing decline is very distressing
2. United -tough competition for the second worst spot but United’s horrific performance got them to second worst airline but it was a narrow victory
3. Alitalia-one hopes that the takeover of them by Air France will improve things, one tatty, rude airline, They were third worst for me last year and here they are again
4. Air Asia- the recent Business class enhancements may be boosting this airline but I still put them a 4th worst
5. Tiger Airways- I think these guys are appalling. Nothing will possess me to fly them again
6. Ryan Air- the epitome of how not to fly. When an airline charges you by the minute to ring their complaints number, there has got to be something wrong. Having said that I have been fine with them -if you have no expectations
7. Jetstar- ugh shudder- how they get awards beats me but I rate them a little higher than I did last year 
8. American Airlines- great to see some improvement here. The staff are a little less grumpy and their Admiral’s Clubs have some food in them again. Would be nice if Qantas flyers could get free wifi in the lounges please. Still American Airlines continue to be a dark spot in the One World alliance
9. US Airlines- has managed to combine the worst features of all the airlines that have merged with them
10. Delta- Never thought I would say/see this but Delta actually has been getting better. Their wifi on board, website booking system , frequent flier program all improved. Its still a terrible airline but more bearable than it was a year ago. They are almost out of my top ten worst airlines.

NB I have not flown Cubana, Kyoro (North Korean), Aeroflot or Iran Air!!

Dear United Airlines

Not flying with you between Australia and the USA again (I still have to fly home with you!) because:

• your 747 is so old and so tatty, it looks like no one cares. So much so the woman next to me was nervous that the maintenance was being done in the same slip shod fashion.
• your staff were very unfriendly They didn’t care and resented the passengers being there. The Cabin crew chatted through the safety briefing. They gossiped loudly in the galley when people were trying to sleep. They visibly read magazines when on duty (some airlines are a little more subtle). They served the meals resentfully (although in fairness the meals were so bad, it was probably resentment at having to serve them to humans)
• the meals served in the  Economy cabin are miserly. Compare your meals with Qantas and Air New Zealand on the same sector. eg United’s breakfast offering was only fruit or scrambled eggs and a small croissant compared to Qantas who provide scrambled egg or omelet, Cereal, jam for the croissant/muffin and yoghurt. In addition both Qantas and Air New Zealand have a snacking arrangement through the flight eg Qantas hands out a snack pack to every passenger.
• The standard of the aforementioned United breakfast. It was the worst I have ever been served on that sector. Why bother serving it? Despite hunger I and the passenger next to me left it almost untouched. Tasteless eggs served in an unappealing lump with a stale croissant and butter
• you are still giving Economy passengers one video screen in each section with no choice of shows for 13.5 hours? For crying out loud! Real airlines now have individual entertainment units. For example, while you have 12 music channels, Air NZ has SIX PAGES of radio and CD choices

Your staff and management need to fly as passengers on a real airline like Qantas, Air NZ or V Australia on that sector and see how it can be done so much better.

To add insult to injury was the video telling me I was on one of the world’s great airlines. Having just flown Emirates, that made me laugh! Emirates are definitely one of the world’s great airlines. Not United!

Today’s Trip gets 2 out of 5, bringing my overall United Airlines rating to 3.4 (Same sector competitors: Air New Zealand 4.9 Qantas 4.8).


See my previous reviews of travel with United for Melbourne-Sydney-Los Angeles -Chicago:

• Part One: Check in & prep etc for MEL-SYD-LAX
• Part Two: Mel-SYD the Unfriendly way
• Part Three: SYD-Chicago The Skies get friendlier

Finally, check out how to do it properly: This is my review of Emirates Auckland to Sydney on the Airbus A380