My sense of trans-Atlantic airlines for US->UK is quickly falling out into three categories:
- British Airways
- Other non-American standard carriers (Aer Lingus, Air Canada)
- Budget carriers, or anything run by a US airline
Aer Lingus ran a perfectly comfortable service from Dublin to the US, featuring an edible (but not fabulous) chicken and rice lunch, and a fairly nice scone-and jam tea. The flight was better than it otherwise would have been because it was less than half full, so there was room to sprawl into neighboring chairs; but even so, not too bad.
The plane did feel like older stock: there were ash trays in the seat arms, something I don’t recall seeing on other flights for years and years. Smoking is of course forbidden, so there was no point to this. Similarly, there weren’t any seat-back screens, though the in-flight magazine referred to the existence of such things on some flights. Also, the headphones provided in the seat pocket (double prong, as so often on recent airplanes) didn’t actually fit the headphone jacks (single prong). I had my own headphones with me, so this didn’t cause me any consternation, but I’m not sure whether they screwed up the distribution for the whole plane or whether I personally just got an odd one.
Beer and alcohol were not free in economy class, either, but if this is the kind of thing that’s going to be decisive in picking an airline, you’ve got bigger problems.
