Best Airlines

Jacqueline,

You might want to speak with a travel agent. I often find they have better and more current information than found on the net.

In Rick's Guidebooks and TV shows, he recommends using a travel agent for international flights.

Cheers!

I like Lufthansa. They fly from Denver, not sure if they do the same from Houston. There is a great direct flight Den-Munich, then connect to Rome.

United flies Denver-Dulles, then to Rome.

Airline hubs are different in TX. Figure out who the big carriers are and check their website.

Continental has lots of flights from TX..you should check them out.

By "best" I am guessing that you mean on time, carry on allowances etc? or are you looking at food/seats?

Economy is economy, but Lufthansa has slightly better seats/service IMO.

Lufthansa is really the best to Europe in my opinion. If you book on United from Houston, they will put you on Lufthansa to Frankfurt (Star Alliance Partner). From Frankfurt you change planes to Rome. We did this from California and it was great. Whatever you do, I would strongly recommend not flying Alitalia. Horror stories on other travel sites about lost checked luggage. On this site, read the thread "Lost Luggage on Alitalia" further down.

Jacqueline-
I've flown Continental from Houston to Rome round trip. The flight was good, no problems- at least when I flew in '03. I also agree with other posters, Lufthansa is also a good airline. You may be able to get a good deal flying Continental since Houston is a big hub for them.

Just back from Europe and Lufthansa is great. more leg room in economy, happy flight attendants and very good food.Most flights will go thru Germany then on to Rome. they may howevre me al ittle more in price.

Hello! Well I am back from my trip to Italy! We stayed in Rome and caught the train to Florence. We had the best time and saved a lot of money by doing a lot of our own tours. We stayed at Hotel Adriatic (www.adriatichotel.com). It was clean, Staff was friendly and kind. They gave us great tips on restaurants, shopping, and how to manuever around the city. It was 3 blocks from the Vatican! We were in walking distance to shopping, eating, and a 10min bus ride to the Pantheon & Trevi Fountain! We flew on Air France ( I highly recommend them! Talking about the red carpet treatment, that we got! Their food was wonderful! They had everything at your fingertips to make your long flight comfortable. Service was excellent! Jacque`

The one that is cheapest from your city to there. Really, that is the answer, and it will change with specials throughout the year. For everyone that mentions Lufthansa above, there will be as many that has had bad experiences, recommending an airline that is better, that just as many have had bad experiences on, and on, and on. Use some search engines like Kayak and Expedia to compare prices among carriers, you will probably notice a trend for Houston-Rome pretty quickly. Generally, it will be an airline that uses both Rome and Houston as hubs, but not always. As an example, if you were in Dallas, I would guess American Airlines/British Airways.

I guess it would also depend on where you are flying out of?
I second the advice about a good Travel Agent.
Air Canada is award winning North America's favorite Airline among others. Check out the Passenger reviews...they speak for themselves!

Proud to bare the Maple Leaf!

F/A

Paul and FA, did you not see the note above yours? Jacqueline is BACK from her trip now -- she asked her question over three months ago.

She asked her question a year and three months ago

Oh wow, Frank you are right! I was going by the post from 11-17-08 when she said she was back (which is what brought the posting back to the top).

I'm also not really a fan of Air Canada. A couple of years ago, my luggage missed the connecting flight from Frankfurt to Toronto. Irritating enough, but it happens. What followed was very very bad service. My luggage was on the ground in Toronto for 3 days (or so I was told) before I got it. Air Canada kept trying to tell me that they had transferred it to the shipping company (who told me they didn't have it) so it was no longer their responsibility. The call centre folks didn't seem to understand that I had very little sympathy for their poor supply chain management and that to me, Air Canada was responsible for getting me my bag. That said, there aren't a lot of cheaper options so I often end up with them anyway. But if it's really important to me, I carry it on.

Flight Attendent,

I will do anything to avoid flying AC. It sucks. Sorry , nothing personal . Food sucks, economy is painfully crowded. Blankets are charged for, and inflight entertainment is way behind most airlines..

YOU personally may be a great, attentive , happy FA,, but you are not in the majority.. I have flown First Class and Cattle Class, and sorry , AC just does not stack up against many other airlines.

But, hey, how many other airlines ( that fly to Europe) does Canada have??? One I think,, LOL, so they must be the best in their class...

I do think they likely do have a good saftey record though.
And I did enjoy the time they had to put us in a hotel overnight and give us meal vouchers when they cancelled our flight that were to continue from Florida ,Montreal , to Victoria.. and they wouldn't tell us why..

Flight Attendant, et al

I've been flying Air Canada more frequently these days, mainly as they had the flights I needed at dates and times that fit with my schedule. While WestJet has consistenly good service and prices, in some cases they only offer one flight a day to or from a particular destination, so that doesn't always work well for me.

So far I've found AC service to be reasonably good, with a couple of exceptions. First, the in-flight entertainment system is a disaster! On a flight to Rome earlier this year and back from Frankfurt, it kept "locking up" and had to be re-booted numerous times. Suggestion to Air Canada - if WestJet can offer a well functioning entertainment system along with a Map that actually displays for most of the flight, there's NO excuse for you to be providing passengers with a poorly operating system. I won't bother getting into the lack of even a small snack on some flights, or flight delays due to poorly performing baggage crews.

When planning flights to Europe, I usually check a variety of carriers, which includes Air Canada, Air Transat, Thomas Cook or others (it's unfortunate that Zoom didn't survive, as they had some very convenient flight choices).

Based on my experience so far, I'll continue to use Air Canada as their service and flight staff have been quite good for the most part. I just hope some of the minor annoyances will eventually improve.

Cheers!

Regardless of the date of this thread, some of us felt it was still relevant enough to respond. After all, it is a general interest question as well.

In Canada, we can choose from Air Canada, Air Canada Jazz (Regional) or the competitor Porter Airlines (Regional), Air Transat, Skyservice (Sunquest), Sunwing or West Jet to name a few. Or we can hop the border and fly out of a US City. So there are options when spending your Air Travel Dollar.

I'm sorry to hear that some of us have had less than favourable experiences with ACA. I do hope that those of us with less than satisfactory experiences took the time to make their concerns known using the proper channels. It's only through Passenger feedback that any Company or Airline can improve their level of quality and service.

Anyone who bears the Maple Leaf knows that Passenger Comment forms do have a way of surfacing at Employee Reviews and Appraisals. These are especially taken into consideration if one hopes to become an In-charge or be promoted within the Company in general.

Something worth noting, however, is the fact that Air Canada was award winning for 2007 as the Best Airline in North America (not just Canada) in Skytrax exhaustive worldwide survey of over 14 million Air travellers. The award for 2008 will be awarded in 2009 so we'll see if they can still hold their position.

A complete listing of Air Canada's achievement is available at:

http://www.aircanada.com/en/about/media/facts/awards/index.html

As for the charging for blankets...that is a growing trend among Airlines. We sell them for a couple bucks and they are yours to keep. You could always bring your own -BYOB!LOL!

Additional newer Aircraft have been brought on line and the Fleet has undergone complete Cabin Interior refurbishment. The finished product is impressive!

You can see pictures of the Cabin Interiors at:

http://www.aircanada.com/shared/en/aco/flights/pop_newcabin.html

Safe Skies,

F/A

Never flew Air Canda, but for a couple of bucks, I am ok with buying my own (new and clean) blanket.