[Anonymous]

[eirtraveller]

I was delighted when the May issue arrived early through the door. Not so delighted when I opened it to find not one single flight review! Three hotels, fine. But it seems inconceivable that there’s not a single flight review in a magazine aimed towards us types that – let’s be honest – are travel (and airline) nerds, and love nothing better than a good discussion on the relative merits of various AVOD systems or cabin layouts. I know the first thing I flip to are the flight reviews, and ultimately, they prove the most useful single element of this (usually) fine magazine.

[Potakas]

Probably because of the volcanic ash situation.

[LHRtraveller]

I couldn’t agree more with you eirtraveller.

[MarcusUK]

Hey BT.
How about having a “Guest” Airline review each issue from a BT Reader|?

There are some of us on here who fly the lesser known Airlines or routes, some far corners of the world, & it maybe interesting to feature these.
Or perhaps a Guest review on Airlines locally, comparing the choice, costs, Airlines, airports. I am here in Australia again for 2 months, certainly plenty going on & much competition, with low cost as well as traditional Airlines all competing. Local tips can always be useful to others…
Idea to have a guest report an issue?

[NTarrant]

The idea of a guest review is okay in principle. The problem is whether the guest is writing it in a subjective or objective manner. The other consideration is how it would work.

[VintageKrug]

I await MarcusUK/MarkRoberts9’s trip report on British Airways, perhaps London Heathrow to Scottsdale in First!

That poor, exhausted ampersand key will be worn out….

Or perhaps you’d rather try that routing on KLM, with a race, Top Gear stylee? Oh, oops after the website has taken five minutes enquiring about the routing, I am still getting “we are searching for the most suitable flight, thank you for your patience”.

—-

It’s better that forum contributors continue to offer Trip Reports here (though a dedicated Trip Report forum might help that).

We should leave the BT professionals to get on with writing reports (though I do wish they’d do one of Virgin America, and perhaps the other Virgin affiliated airlines to compare just how consistent services and products are currently, and establish what is planned to change in the future).

Would have been fun to get someone to blog from one of the more remote destinations during the ash crisis and how people got home and how they managed the uncertainty of it all. Your journalists may not have been able to do a trip reports, but I can’t believe none of you were stranded!

One thing I learned was that although I am fully on top of booking air travel for maximum personal optimisation, I am well behind the curve on European train travel; very much outside my comfort zone on that one. Perhaps I should have waited for Gordon to send a warship (even though he promised three!).

KLM website has finally responded with a delightful jaunt around Europe and the midwest, routing London-Amsterdam-Minneapolis-Phoenix, those last two sectors on seem to be on Delta, and the final bit in domestic configuration. Oh and no First.

Sounds delightful, but I’d rather go direct on a BA 747.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/174/427725557_d79c8f698b.jpg?v=0

[BusinessTraveller]

Hi All – thanks for your comments. I’ll be able to post on this in more detail once i’m back in the office after the bank holiday, but just to confirm:

The lack of airline T&Ts in the May issue was down to nothing other than the natural cycle of things – we tend to only review new or recently introduced products in the magazine (as opposed to online where we review every flight taken by the editorial team), and while we try to include at least one or two each issue, it’s not always logistically possible.

Like i say i’ll need to confirm when i’m back in the office, but i know that next month there’ll be at least two airline T&Ts, as we’re reviewing Oman Air’s new economy and business products on the London-Muscat route, including the recently introduced in-flight mobile phone and internet access.

Vintage Krug – your posts re: Virgin America have been noted, and it’s certainly on our list of products to review when we can.

[Bunnahabhain]

Good to see BT responding, this is the real value of such a forum – ok it would be a pretty poor show if BT didn’t interact on its own forum, but we could do with more of the same from the airlines etc, even if they disagreed with suggestions. They do respond to letters in the magazine, but these often relate to specific cases where the reader has encountered a problem or poor service. I think LCY re security queue time is the only other example on this forum of interaction from an operator. If they don’t want to interact directly they could always do so via the site administrator / BT.

[VintageKrug]

Yippee! A Virgin America report! How exciting. Would be especially interesting to try out their new longer mid haul/transcon services and perhaps test out how well plugged in to a V:Australia or Virgin Atlantic connection they would be, perhaps by testing LAX-BOS. No need to actually take the connecting flight if time doesn’t permit, but useful to research the scenario in a what if kind of way.

Would be great if Virgin was to become truly joined up; I just don’t see it being possible by the end of 2010 for both logistical and regulatory reasons.

http://www.virginamerica.com

[eirtraveller]

Thank you BT for replying, and indeed this thread raises the issue (through the suggestion of “user” reviews) of just how subjective and personal any reviews, BT or otherwise, should be.

Can I cast my vote strongly for reviews from BT which would in future take a more aggressive stance on the flight experienced. I find it sometimes frustrating that the reviews degenerate into simple description. I’m yearning for the reviewer to really passionately convey a sense of the experience. Think Top Gear reviews of cars – a slightly extreme analogy – but if J Clarkson et al were reviewing a United Airlines biz flight, what would you get from it? At least, a great sense of actually being there and probably some good writing.

BT, I know, deliberately stays away from anything of this kind – and to its detriment in my opinion. There’s at least a good middle-ground here, not always having to be quite so school-trip-report in feeling.

BT says above they only review “new” or “recently introduced” products. Fine. But we travel all the time, often on the same airline, and with very different experiences. I’d like to see some of those in print. A suggestion: in addition to the ‘factual’ T&Ts, give us something a bit edgier too – a review of Upper Class where something was really unacceptable, a subjective review that we could, as readers, agree or disagree with. Opinion, well written, can be a great moment in journalism as we know.

I’d love to see some in BT.

And, as a footnote, if there ain’t any new or recently introduced products, then just put something in so that we can get our fix – from BT Asia, or BT America for instance.

[VintageKrug]

I like eirtraveller’s suggestion; something a bit more “Top Gear” would certainly engage the reader.

We have all learned alternative means of travel in the past few weeks, maybe a comparison between Eurostar and the plane from London to Nice, getting across the Atlantic by ship (Cunard hardly features in your pages), little pop up boxes on travel tips etc.

I can see why BT sticks to the more formulaic approach; with limited print space, it allows a consistent review of differing products with key aspects covered for every product.

I would like more on “real life scenarios” like having to interline on bmi to another star carrier (usually a nightmare as far as luggage is concerned), being delayed on easyjet or how an airline dealt with a complaint (channels of communication, response times, style of response, compensation etc.)

[Free Lance]

Real-life scenarios are indeed interesting. On the subject of easyjet I read this recent tried and tested from BT which made a change from the usual hassle-free flights I read about…

http://www.businesstraveller.com/tried-and-tested/airlines/easyjet/easyjet-a319-economy-class-2

[NTarrant]

I too agree with eirtraveller and VK. There does not seem to be a passion of enjoyment, annoyance or mediocry but at the same time keeping an objective view. There is I beleive an objective view but lacks the wow!

Perhaps the idea of guest writing may not be such a bad idea for everyday products that we travel on.

[Tom Otley]

Thank you for your comments on this.

Not only would we welcome your reviews, we have asked for them on several occasions.

One of the purposes of having the user profile page built was to allow anyone registered on the site to see all the forum posts, comments and flight reviews that users had posted. If you click on your own user name in this forum (or anyone else’s), you will see this. In most cases, reviews have not yet been posted.

We would very much like more user flight reviews on businesstraveller.com and seatplans.com – and offer some impressive prizes to those who review their flights. This month it is a two-night stay for two, including breakfast, courtesy of the Hilton Antwerp. The prize includes return flights and a limousine on arrival.

http://www.seatplans.com/add-user-review

When we reach a sufficient volume, we will include excerpts from these reviews in the magazine, although space is always an issue.

Coming up from the staff we have Oman AIr (2 of these), TAM (2 reviews), Lufthansa short haul (4 of these) and China Airlines, Virgin Atlantic and the new (to us, at least) Continental Airlines flat bed.

[Author]

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