Sushrut

Thanks to the East West combination of my life, I have been traveling a lot like birds, some of the biggest airlines that FLY the nation. Following the lowest fare at that moment, I have managed to fly majority of the options available and have formed my own expert(?) opinions about them.

Starting with my first travel to USA and then to the west, Delta was good. Specifically, its ultra long range Boeing 777 is fantastic. I will really appreciate if there is one such service flying home over the pacific. Only here I have encountered air-hostess communicating with passengers informally over the PA system, cracking jokes and singing a song !

Innocent and uninformed I flew US Airways later, only to get real taste of low(NO) frills air travel. It was pretty cheap but matched its price with terrible schedule, delayed flight and old, unclean plane(s). Sometimes they do land their planes in water, not with me though. Asking politely for a buck (in cash) for a cup of coffee, US airways is Air Deccan of US.

Substantially different from all these is Southwest. It is different in everything, from booking site to planes to boarding system to schedules to the algorithms that power their flight routing systems. And it is a few small steps above NO frills. Best thing I liked in southwest is the southwest logo and clear statements about what they do. They say they are cheap, low cost passenger carriers and do only that much.

Definitely above these is Virgin America. I can agree that since they fly only a limited destinations, and have only a handful planes to manage , they are well in managing stuff, but even then its a good experience. Simple to book, flying direct to the east, I am very impressed with the new planes and simplistic flying experience. Everything is paid here, and everything in premium. They allow priority boarding to first class, children and families, disabled and (at times) guys wearing RED clothes !

Finally, and may be surprisingly, my rank one is an OLD-school airline. If you ever flew with Indian Airlines in the pre-private era, you can remember the authentic airline feel. Air travel used to be luxurious then, was costly but was a royal experience. Planes used to be well cleaned for each flight, old big boeings with lots of legrrom, each seat loaded with headfones, blanket and pillow and most importantly the hospitality of air hostess used to be credible. United is exactly that.

They dont have personal screens like virgin, or they dont have small long range planes like others but United is a real old school airline which I always find closer to the Old royal days of air travel. They still fly big 767s with center seats, in domestic flights, have a FIRST class which is really a top notch way to fly and have ample drinks to spend on even economy travellers. Its not just the free drinks or other amenitites they provide but its the real old "authentic airline" like feel which attracts me to United.

I wish i can fly back home on United.

I wanted to write about so many things, in this new country where I have been for more than 200 days now. So I think I pretty much have the authority to make statements!

So here I begin, with my favorite thing.. indeed that is how I came here.