BMI airlines

[dot.hawkes]

What a shower! And I don't mean the torrential downpour we just had here in Pinapple Beach Antigua! We flew out here last Saturday on a scheduled BMI flight to Antigua and we left Manchester 6 hours late on a delapidated antiquated old tin can. It is our last morning here and I have had a massage to help me prepare for the torture of flying 8 hours on another BMI plane. the TV screen was directly above my head getting here and there was no duty free. Better be sorted going home. Still., this is a fabulous island, it is paradise and we love it. It is very hot but great cooling off in the sea, Atlantic not Caribean but it is still great. I intend having a go at Virgin holidays when i get back as they sold us the holiday but put us on a BMI flight, anyone any experience flying with Virgin Airlines? are they better than BMI? This is a dial up connection too, really slow, $5 for 30 mins, is that cheap? Mind, it is in a little gift shop on the complex, I sold my old mobile to the girl who works here, mobiles are really expensive here, about $500 US for a good one!

[dzug]

Could be because Virgin don't fly from Manchester to Antigua? They do have a reasonably good reputation as an airline though. BMI from what I can make out are not sure whether they are a basic or full service airline.

[dot.hawkes]

Hi I am home! The BMI flight back from Antigua was just as bad as going, no entertainment/tv screens at all (broken)and the plane was antiquated. Hardly anyone had any seatarm buttons working for calling a steward or using lights and earphones. In the Virgin brochure it says it is still a Virgin quality holiday and passengers can expect a Virgin standard on the BMI flights, and that is exactly what we all expected. But it was appalling.

[flipflop104]

We flew Virgin to Orlando and they were excellent - TOP QUALITY

[dot.hawkes]

flipflop I am convinced we were given poor quality service on a supposed Virgin Holiday, I have emailed Virgin Holidays and told them how badly BMI treated their Virgin Customers. It has annoyed me that because we live in the isolated North of England and have to rely on a service from manchester, we get second class treatment! Manchester is a massive airport and there is no reason Virgin can't fly from there.

[dzug]

This is rather an old post so don't know if you'll pick up on this reply , Dot, but I've just been looking at the results of the Guardian travel survey:

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2005/09/15/travelaward.pdf

Virgin and BMI are very much towards the top of the long-haul airline ratings with Virgin having a slight edge.