US Airways, The Unfriendly Skies

It's been a little over a year since I've flown between the US and Europe. I wish I could have waited longer (for several reasons) but Friday, July 26, I found myself sitting on a new US Airways route between Philly, PA, and Oslo, Norway. Here’s the story – I tried to keep it short.

Once upon a time one of America’s largest airlines decides to explore the other side of the pond. Big mistake! This airline was lost, had no clue, and exhausted its weary passengers.

Now as I said, it’s been awhile since I’ve hoped the pond and I usually fly a European carrier. Still, I found some of the “offerings,” or rather lack thereof, particularly disturbing. I know I’m spoiled, but Shane and I found this flight to be so bad that I just HAD to write about it. Here are our ratings.

Seating – Cramped US standard seating, not the slightly larger seats for most European segments. (Also no personal TV screen, no leg rest, no room period.) (2 out of 5)

Food – Pasta or chicken? At least it was dinner. The only thing I had to eat all day was McDonald’s on the way out of LFT and I didn’t finish that. Breakfast was smashed Danish and I gave it to Shane. (1 out of 5)

Beverages – $7 for any alcoholic beverage!!! This is the first time I’ve seen a charge for alcohol on any flight to Europe. $7 for Bud Light??? Come on! Those are stadium prices but at least there you can buy a hot dog with your beer. We had wine and a Bloody Mary for $32.

Entertainment – Might as well have been on-existent. From Shane’s window seat he couldn’t see the screen. I could only hear sound in my left ear and they wanted $5 for the headset (remember, this is an international flight) and they showed only 1 movie on a 7:15 min. flight.

Communications – 99.9% English. The pilot or co-pilot spoke Norwegian at the beginning of the flight but then not again. Yes, I know, most everyone in Norway speaks English but when was the last time you took an international flight and the crew spoke only one language? The crew felt some kind of need to keep passengers in the dark about our arrival time but constantly reminded us to fasten our seatbelts, remain seated, and other various “helpful” tips in the middle of the night when we were supposed to be allowed to sleep.

Service – Efficient – I mean who can’t hand out danishes quickly – but no service between dinner and breakfast. All other pond-hopping flights I’ve been on included water and OJ service at least twice during the flight.

Schedule – DELAYED take off in Philly by one hour and fifteen min. Our arrival time was never announced during the flight and without the helpful screen showing your progress we had no clue if we had 30 min. left in the flight or 2 hours. As I drafted this “review” on the plane I realized we would not be landing on time.

Bailout – Why did we (the USA) bail out this airline? So they can add new routes and provide sub-par accommodations?

Price – For all of this we paid $2,461.60 round trip for each person! That’s right kids, we paid almost $5,000 for the worst flight of our lives. US Airways no longer offers bereavement fares so we were stuck paying top dollar for the most horrible flight possible. I will never fly a US carrier to Europe again.