from a tired Traveler
Written: Feb 10 '07
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: cheap flight
Cons: tour of the world
The Bottom Line: dont fly with them, get on british/klm/singapore/anyone else who goes to calcutta
|
|
|
| chinafrog's Full Review: Royal Jordanian Airlines |
Why we bought from them?
Every 5 years or so, our family visits our motherland of India. Getting tickets to the great subcontinent can be a daunting task and that particular year was no different. Our friends warned us that we should have booked 6 months prior in order to get reasonable tickets. But we didn?t have that much time: only 2 months.
We tried every known travel agent in the vicinity to help us get tickets to Calcutta but we didn?t have much luck. There are only a few airlines that will fly to Calcutta: British Airways, KLM, Singapore Air, Thai Air and Royal Jordan.
At the last minute, we were able to obtain tickets to Calcutta from Boston through Royal Jordan. The price was about $1100 per person, which was an unbeatable price. We pretty much had to go with them.
The flight
The flight was awful. We flew from Providence to New York. On our itinerary it stated we were to go directly from NY to Amman, Jordan. However, I was very shocked to find out that the plane would be going from NY to Sharon, Ireland. And this was an apparently scheduled stop; all the flight crew knew about it, but not the passengers. When we got to Ireland, we sat on the plane for 4 hours. No one got on and no one got off. They didn?t even refuel. The staff said that this was a scheduled stop but it just seemed too strange. Then, after 4 hrs, we left for Jordan. Once in Jordan, we had to get off the plane. This was another 7 hours of waiting. We all wandered around the Jordan airport mall and this was just incredibly dull. I could not wait to get out of there. After Jordan, we flew to New Delhi. Here, some passengers got on and off. We waited here for another 3 hours. Then, we flew to Calcutta, our final destination.
This flight had sooo many stops that it was really an unpleasant experience for me. Read further if you want to know what happens on the way back.
The security
I will say that the security checks were very rigorous. The airport checks that we had in Amman, Jordan were the MOST thorough of all the airports. This I thought was very surprising since this was flying in and through a Middle Eastern country. We had to take off our shoes, open all carry on items(which were individually searched for EVERY person boarding a plane) and even had individual body searches( again, this was NOT random; it was done for every one boarding the plane). I was really impressed with the security precautions that this airline undertook to ensure the safety of the flight from all possible threats. The security in the Calcutta Airport was the worst. All the guards seemed confused as to what they were supposed to be doing and just piled up everyones? belongings without knowing how to search and when. It was a big scene of chaos and we just made it in time to board the flight.
The food
The food was plentiful. On the way to Calcutta, I got 4-5 major meals, not including snacks/soda breaks. They had vegetarian and meat options. It is your typical airplane food; nothing to write home about. For me, as a person who doesn?t eat very much I thought the food was excessive. But my family thought that the quantity was sufficient.
On the way back?
Well after 30 days of hectic vacation, we were ready to fly back. This flight promised to test my patience to the very limit. From Calcutta we flew to New Delhi, so we again waited for 3 hours and people got on and off board. Then we flew to Jordan. At this point, we had to not only get off the plane but we had to stay overnight in Amman. The airline provided us with hotel and food for the night. The hotel was very clean and food was good, plentiful, with plenty of options. However, I was not thrilled with having to stay overnight in an unknown country. Also, I am not even sure as to why this was necessary. It just added more travel time and made me even more exhausted. The next morning we flew from Jordan to Ireland. Again, this was not on the itinerary but apparently all of the flight crew knew about it. So, I guess it was a scheduled stop. Go figure. This time in Ireland, everyone got off the plane. We were stranded in the airplane for about 5 hours before we got on board again. Then from here to NY. In NY, we deboarded in order to go through the customs check. Then from here we went to Providence.
Overall, I found the flight experience with this airline to be quite exhausting, uncomfortable and unpleasant. I would not recommend this airline to my friends and family who would like to fly to same regions that I flew to because this airline?s itinerary is not conducive to saving a passenger?s time or sanity.
Recommended:
No
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
chinafrog
|
|
Reviews written: 163
Trusted by: 12 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.