Domestic US flights
On our trip to the west coast, we flew using a couple of different airlines - Delta, United, American Airlines and Virgin America - so we got to compare them.
The best in my opinion was Virgin America, their planes were new and trendy with pink and purple (subtle!) lights and the service was excellent. There were individual monitors with movies, TV, games, etc. plus you could order and pay for your food and drinks for the flight online.
American Airlines was good. The best thing was that they had a Trivial Pursuit game on the individual monitors where you could play against others onboard. There are 20 general knowledge questions with 4 potential answers and you get points based on correctness and speed of answering. I got the highest score of the flight - the highest by far :) using an interesting strategy of not even reading the questions and just by selecting the nicest looking answer in a split second so if I got it right I got 500/550 points as supposed to others who were reading the question and answers carefully who then got only 100 or so. Good fun.
United Airlines was the worst in my opinion. They didn't offer/sell headphones for the monitors. The service was not good. They confiscated my bottle of Mrs Balls Chutney (a gift from my sister-in-law) at security - yes chutney is so dangerous, I might just injure someone onboard (#sarcasm). No individual monitors, they only have the occasional big screen in the aisle and didn't provide/sell headphones.
We flew with Jetblue to NYC last August, service was fairly good, they didn't charge for checked luggage and offered complimentary drinks and snacks onboard.
Similarities....
- All offered complimentary drinks with the option to pay for food/snacks
- Not sure about the other airlines but Delta offered onboard Internet (for a fee)
- All have self-service terminals for customers to check in and get their tickets
Differences to South Africa...
- One big difference compared to South African flights is the fact that here customers flying domestic American flights have to pay $25 per checked baggage. As a result many customers have a lot of hand luggage. The airlines don't seem to be very strict with hand luggage and some customers have 3 or 4 bags even though they have size and weight limits. This actually results in chaos on board as there is not enough space in the cabin for hand luggage and then customers with large carry-ons must hand their luggage in which is then added to the checked luggage (ironically for free). Being the analytical ex-consultants we are, Athol and I discussed some possible strategies for these airlines to solve this very problem :)
- Domestic flights in SA don't have individual monitors
- Most airlines in the US have kerb checked baggage drop-off. This is SO convenient, so that you can just check in your baggage as soon as you are dropped at at the terminal
- Most big hotels have a dedicated computer/s in the reception for customers to check in to their flights. There is also a printer to print your tickets. Such a great idea!
- Rental cars have shuttles which come around every few minutes to take customers to the rental car company which is a distance away from the airport. Again a very clever idea as this eliminates congestion by the airport
- There aren't vendors that cling wrap your bags like they do in South Africa since luggage isn't tampered with here in the US
- The baggage claim area is by the exit and the public are allowed in. Again, in South Africa this is not the case as luggage gets stolen
- Las Vegas International Airport is the only airport which I have seen so far with slot machines by arrivals/departures as well as by baggage claim
- By the security check points, you need to take your shoes, scarves and jackets off (besides your usual laptop and liquids). At Logan International (Boston) you had to walk through a fancy security machine where you had to hold up hands and the machine scanned you
- You have to rent a trolley for luggage though I think it is refundable
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