Air Jamaica, Excellent flights, terrible admin.
Written: Oct 08 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Good leg room, good meals, good bar
Cons: delays. You will almost certainly be delayed.
The Bottom Line: If you can adapt for the delays then AJ is a great carrier for the price.
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| armengar's Full Review: Air Jamaica |
I used Air Jamaica to travel to Couples Negril in August 2003. I had previously used Air Tours and will sum up the major differences and problems encountered with Air Jamaica.
first of all I can almost guarantee that your flights will be delayed. I had steeled myself for the fact that our flight was going to be delayed and paid extra for the use of the service lounge. A very very good idea - a 4 hour delay, however we were all given a $10 voucher each (about $15ish) for food. Not bad considering I could get free alcohol from the service lounge too.
The flight was fantastic. I am 6 foot tall and probably 220ish pounds with large legs and broad shoulders. I could happily and comfortably sit in the seat - even with the chair in front of me reclined. I believe that the aircraft was an A340. The seating was arranged as 2-4-2 with many of the 4 sections unpopulated.
The staff initially looked bored and non attentive, however if you nod and smile and say hello they will happily return the complement, and this is useful when they are giving out alcohol from the free bar (you can count on approximately 5 visits to the bar for a 9 hour flight - not including meals) as the flight attendants gave me double drinks each time (yup, I drank at least 10 cans of red stripe - most enjoyable).
Meals were very nice if you like spicy food, if you do not like spicy food then you are in difficulty as the vegitarian options were also spicy bakes. I can quite honestly say that the meals were the tastiest I have ever had. They beat BA, Air Tours and Virgin. Quite generous (for an airline meal) and very tasty. You can expect a hot meal, snack and breakfast style meal for a typical long haul flight.
The toilets were stocked with nice smelling handwash and had a plentiful supply of reasonable toilet paper (not tracing paper). I am a cynical traveller and always carry an amount of toilet roll in my carry on luggage - you never know where you will end up.
AJ allowed us 32Kg of luggage which was ample. My case was over and my wifes case was under but they aggregated the amount (unlike Air Tours - but that is another story).
Upon the return flight we found that there was 1 person checking in over 200 passengers, as a result we were 3 hours delayed again. This is simply bad admin and another couple of people checking in would have helped. We were also flying via Kingston where we disembarked and got another plane (we were not told why and initially were told we should not have to change plane so again the reason is unknown) this added another hour to our 3 hour delay making yet another 4 hour delay.....
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
armengar
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Reviews written: 14
Trusted by: 0 members
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