Travel Question--Airlines

[auntiehill]

So......hubby has declared that we are going to Ireland next year. He says it's going to happen and that's that. Our (or maybe just MY) bucket list trip of going to Wales may not happen, at least not until I am actually about to kick the aforementioned bucket. Since his mother died in December, he's been grappling with having lost his family connection. He still has a sister who lives in town but she's bat-shit crazy and dealing with her and her family has always been more of burden to him than anything else. His father's side of family, who live here in town, have had little to no contact with him since his parents divorced when hubby was only 13. I think he's searching for some family connection in Ireland, even though his mother hated the one trip she took Ireland--despite her pride in her Irish heritage. Anyway, he's determined that this is something he MUST do. OK, fine, I get it. But he's done no planning for it at all, so it falls to me.

So, to get the ball rolling, I started pricing flights to get an idea of how much it will cost. Since we're not even remotely well-off, we're talking Economy Class here, all the way. However, I'm finding some pretty wildly divergent opinions on airlines--Aer Lingus has some scathing reviews, although they also get recommended by travel sites, and the big US carriers like American and United, well......"scathing" doesn't really cover it.

If my fat ass has to sit on a plane for an entire day, I'd like to make it as painless an experience as possible. Any recommendations about which of the cheaper international flights/airlines might be less horrible than the others? Any travel tips for flying to Ireland from the US?

 

[Finn]

I have no idea, but best of luck to you. I would look into a travel package, especially if you subscribe to something that gives you rewards and discounts for things like trips, cars,etc , like USAA does.

 

[auntiehill]

^Good idea. We have AAA, so that might help.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Use skyscanner to find your flights, great interface and detailed comparisons of price, layover time.

All planes suck, you WILL be uncomfortable unless you are rich.

Aer lingus is best avoided. I believe they mess you around a lot and if you have a limited time to your trip you don't want cancelled flights sucking up your vacation.

You can take a ferry to Wales from Dublin in a few hours. Since you are in charge of everything just book that in!

 

[Avro Arrow]

Full disclosure: I cannot afford to travel, so I have no first-hand experience here.

That being said... I have heard from others some really good things about WestJet. I don't know how true they are. It may just be in comparison to Air Canada, which appears to be a particularly low bar to exceed.

WestJet flies from Toronto to Dublin. But of course, then you would also need a flight from your home to Toronto. WestJet does fly to your state... but I looked at some of the prices, and wow. There are probably cheaper options available. By contrast, the flight to Dublin generally seems much cheaper, and the low Canadian dollar might be helpful for you there? Of course, since I don't travel, I have no idea how these prices might compare to other options you have available. I was mainly just going for the "less horrible" part of your request!

I also have no idea if flying into Canada first creates other issues, like security or such.

My understanding is WestJet also recently settled their labour disagreement, so there is currently no risk of a strike.

And this might be a dumb question, but... Wales is like, *right there* anyway. Wouldn't it be possible to visit both places at the same time while you're already on that side of the Atlantic?

Best of luck to you, and I hope all goes well!

 

[auntiehill]

I have been TRYING to get hubby to set at least one day aside for Wales. No luck yet. I shall continue to nag to see if I can't break him down.

@teacake . Skycanner? Never heard of that. Thanks! That looks very useful.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I love skyscanner. If you are at all flexible on your dates choose the show whole month option just under where you plug in your dates. You get to see what the lowest price is on each day and really save money that way. It's cleaner interface than webjet.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

There's a sidebar where you csn also adjust total trip time if you want to avoid seeing options that include 9 hour layovers. I just did this myself and the flights were the same price. You don't want a bargain flight that includes 9 hour layovers eating up your holiday time. Skyscanner clearly displays total flight time without having to click on each option.

 

[Tora Ziyal]

Full disclosure: I cannot afford to travel, so I have no first-hand experience here.

That being said... I have heard from others some really good things about WestJet. I don't know how true they are. It may just be in comparison to Air Canada, which appears to be a particularly low bar to exceed.

WestJet flies from Toronto to Dublin. But of course, then you would also need a flight from your home to Toronto. WestJet does fly to your state... but I looked at some of the prices, and wow. There are probably cheaper options available. By contrast, the flight to Dublin generally seems much cheaper, and the low Canadian dollar might be helpful for you there? Of course, since I don't travel, I have no idea how these prices might compare to other options you have available. I was mainly just going for the "less horrible" part of your request!

I also have no idea if flying into Canada first creates other issues, like security or such.

My understanding is WestJet also recently settled their labour disagreement, so there is currently no risk of a strike.

And this might be a dumb question, but... Wales is like, *right there* anyway. Wouldn't it be possible to visit both places at the same time while you're already on that side of the Atlantic?

Best of luck to you, and I hope all goes well!

Interesting. I flew Air Canada last summer — Baltimore to Toronto to Tel Aviv and back, so four flights — and the service was terrific.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I have always gotten excellent service on Air Canada.

 

[DimesDan]

Aer Lingus are fine, I prefer flying with them to the UK from here over Ryan Air and other carriers, not there are many choices.

As for travelling to Wales from here, how would you do that? Fly into Cardiff from here or get the ferry across?

And where in Ireland are your husbands decendents?

 

[Avro Arrow]

Interesting. I flew Air Canada last summer — Baltimore to Toronto to Tel Aviv and back, so four flights — and the service was terrific.

I have always gotten excellent service on Air Canada.

My apologies; as I mentioned, I have no personal experience with this, so I was just basing that comment on what I have heard from others. And I've heard such complaints a lot. Sometimes it seems that complaining about Air Canada is one of our national pastimes, right after complaining about the weather, and complaining about the Maple Leafs!

 

[auntiehill]

And where in Ireland are your husbands decendents?

Ancestors. We have no descendants, unless you count our cat.

About his family: I have no idea. Neither does he, apparently--which is why the sudden "I MUST go to Ireland" thing kinda came out of nowhere. I *think* someone said they're from Claire but they have a REALLY common name, so it could be fucking ANYWHERE.

 

[MacLeod]

Aer Lingus are fine, I prefer flying with them to the UK from here over Ryan Air and other carriers, not there are many choices.

As for travelling to Wales from here, how would you do that? Fly into Cardiff from here or get the ferry across?

And where in Ireland are your husbands decendents?

Ah Ryan Air where you fly sardine class.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Like the Fhloston Paradise shuttle in The Fifth Element?

 

[rhubarbodendron]

Auntie, if you come all the way to Ireland it'd really be a pity if you'd not do the short hop over to Wales. The Irish Sea is only 80 km / 50 miles wide and Wales is not as expensive as you might think, particularly if you take B&B instead of a hotel. If you're interested in Cardiff and its immediate surroundings I could meet with you and be your tourguide

As for Airlines, within the last 15 years I've tried the following:
KLM: average space, quite comfortable seats, very friendly staff, wonderful chicken wraps. excellent tea
Lufthansa: medium as far as space and seating comfort is concerned. Rather good food, terrible tea, quite good fruit juice.
British Airways: Little leg space and seats a trifle too hard, food quite good, tea a bit on the strong side imo, excellent mineral water
Air France: most leg space I've ever had. Food not as good as you'd expect, given the nation. Excellent dessert, though.
American Airways: least leg space of all I tried. Friendly staff but rather exaggerated security - I almost got jailed as "a terrorist signing to an accomplice" for giving a friend a Vulkan Salute. To a European, American flight security is more frightening than any terrorist. With a terrorist, chances are astronomically small that one gets on board with a weapon. With flight security you have a 100% certainty of having highly excitable armed people on board and not knowing if/when one of them might run amok ot misinterpret a harmless situation and kill someone - quite possibly you. Just utterly scary!
Good food. Tea nothing to write home about but good orange juice and is said to have good coffee.


As a general rule I recommend the seat row at the middle (emergency) exit. This row has a few inches more leg space and since you are directly at the end of the wing it's one of the most steady spots in turbulent weather conditions.
Speaking of which: there'll be turbulences and air pockets immediately before the Irish coast. Don't worry, that's perfectly normal. It's caused by the warm Gulf Stream meeting the cold polar currents.

 

[cosmic mouse]

I flew rt on Aer Lingus in 2012 from Boston to Dublin and back and I have to say that my fight was absolutely seamless. In Boston Aer Lingus is considered "domestic" though, so I didn't have to deal with the international terminal and customs (I only had to dot that stuff when I landed in IRE).

If you can get a decent RT ticket on Aer Lingus I'd recommend that if it's proving cheaper compared to US airlines (not sure what you've looked at so far). It's possible it could be a different experience if flying from a different part of the US, but...

Where in Ireland are you going? If you don't have specific destination, then I recommend flying into Dublin, staying there a couple of days (when I was there Saturdays at all the museums, art and history, were free admission, plus there may be other free stuff to do if you are pinching pennies) and the head out o other locales. If you want to travel throughout the country I rec the train. I was terrified to drive since it's opposite of the US and the friend who was with me is an even weaker driver than I am and I knew we'd be drinking, so the train was the way to go and less expensive than renting a car.

I also recommend staying in B&B's while you are there. They are plentiful and way less $$ than a hotel, plus all of them give you a full Irish breakfast included and that's enough to hold many people over until dinner.

I used this site to reserve the accommodations and every single place we stayed (3 or 4 of them) were clean, with pleasant owners/management.

https://www.bandbireland.com/

...and that's way more info than you asked for feel free to disregard any of it.

 

[Leviathan]

Context: I travel a lot. Too much. I have enough frequent flier miles to get 1st class tickets to Jupiter.

-fly during a down-time, midweek if possible...try different dates by 1-3 days, less popular flights are cheaper.
-if SUPER lucky you can get next to an empty seat.
-middle seats are cheapest and least comfortable
-try and pick a flight with a good plane, with space (787 is awful, 777 is usually best space, a340/320 is good)
-use this tool to pick a seat with decent legroom: https://www.seatguru.com/
-the time zone jetlag issue can be reduced if you start waking up 1-4 hours early a week before the trip
-comfy shoes that are loose fitting
-try and get an evening flight, pass out/sleep using earplugs or noise cancelling headphones
-do NOT bring stinky food on the plane or you'll have severe discomfort from the the severe beating you receive
-check in the luggage and travel light, you have 2-4 hours stuck in airports and do not need the trouble
-have all your passport papers ready to access quickly and be ready to take off shoes/belts at security
-use the washroom just before the flight, and go again sometime before the mid-flight. Never use the washroom in the last hour....the horrors cannot be unseen.
-upon arrival you will be standing waiting for customs for 30-90 minutes...be prepared to wait.

As to which airline? They all suck slightly less than using a catapult. The current goal is to make Economy so uncomfortable that you buy a seat upgrade.

I bid you the modern air travellers Blessing: May you land safely with at least some dignity remaining.

 

[auntiehill]

Thanks @rhubarbodendron and @cosmic mouse ; lots of good info there.

Hubby now says he wants to go in April but he thinks 50 F is *freezing* (Texan ), so I'm not sure how that will go.


@Leviathan
Thanks! That was very informative, useful....and somewhat depressing.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

April is a rather cold and rainy month in Europe but that makes it cheap to travel.
Take care to not travel around Easter: there are school holidays in many European countries and a lot of families will travel then which makes the flights more expensive.

They all suck slightly less than using a catapult.

LOL nicely phrased