Excel Airways

[tudeski2004]

About the use Excel for the first time from Gatwick to Palma, however since booking tickets, I have heard nothing but negative things about them. It appears from people who have used them that most of the time the flights go TECH or that the interior is tatty. The list goes on. I am not mudslinging, but just interested to hear from people that fly them or use them, what they are like?. Ta

[CentreFix25]

Flew with them once, 737-800, on time & clean. For what i paid i've got no complaints.

[submariner]

I have only flown XL once, but found them excellent. 737-800 on long flight to hurghada, which I thought would be uncomfortable, but pleasantly surprised.

Food - Amongst best I have had in charter
Timekeeping - On Time
Staff - Pleasant and Efficient
Aircraft - Clean & Tidy, legroom appears much of a muchness
In flight entertainment - Improvements could be made here as quite poor

On return flight, a/c diverted into Italy due to ill PAX. We were put into quality hotels overnight. Overall quite happy with them.

Best UK charter I have flown with, although Air Europa best overall in my opinion.

[Gordon17]

I've flown with them twice - Gatwick to Kefalonia a couple of years ago and Gatwick to Funchal at Easter this year. All the flights were on time with friendly, efficient crew and edible food. On 3 of the flights the aircraft was very clean and smart with leather seats but the other seemed to be a bit older and had a scruffier interior. Overall I was impressed - we even got free Easter eggs at check in and they looked after children well.

[chippy63]

I flew them to Sardinia with the family- everyone though they were fine. Good luck!

[Nottingham]

I recently had the misfortune to travel with Excel from Manchester to Fuerteventura

The flight out was fine 17th May

The flight back 27th May 2006 though half and hour late was ok until the pilot announced that due to 'operational reasons' (i.e. to save them money) we would land at Gatwick rather than Manchester and be bussed from there

So 6 hours late we finally arrived at Manchester - no food, no drink and no explaination of the reason why - welcome to Ex HELL airways

They may be cheap, but personally I would rather pay a small amount extra for an airline that delivers what it promises and so I am sure would the 220 other people on the plane

[CCL1]

I find it really hard to believe that a large Airline such as Excel would just decide for no given reason to divert your flight to LGW instead of MAN. For one reason the A/C is more than likely based at MAN and would've been needed for another rotation out of MAN. I have flown on Excel many a time and have always found them to be professional. I,m not disputing you had a bad experience on this ocassion but I doubt no explanation was given. Of course like any airline Excel suffer tech problems and delays but as far as I,m led to believe they have always been handled well and professionally.

[BRUpax]

Nottingham, you will find that "operational" diversions resulting in lengthy coach/taxi rides are not that uncommon with other companies. It's a scandal and should be legislated against.

[sixmilehighclub]

Sorry all but the law states (Passenger carriage rights) that an airline is only obliged to get you from A to Z. If they need to go via D, M, N and Y, or wherever, they can just so long as you end up departing on your journey from your booked departure point and arrive at your booked arrival point. Believe it or not his does not have to be by aircraft necessarily. Althouigh most airlines try to!!

[aw8565]

Excel seem to have had a tough time in the past couple of weeks. Something like 4 or 5 tech aircraft at once, which screwed up the Gatwick program a lot.

How about this: One of there 747's (owned by Air Atlanta Icelandic) was re routed by Excel to operate Faro/Malaga/Gatwick to pick up passengers from a tech Malaga/Gatwick flight. The 747 arrived in Malaga and went tech. No engineers in Malaga so an engineer set out from Madrid by car.

Before he arrived the crew solved the problem and the flight took off.

Once airborne a short while the problem re-occurred and the flight had to divert. Where to? Yep. Madrid. Where there was now one fewer engineers than in Malaga.

737-800 you should hopefully be ok. 747 used to be bad but have been departing early recently (!) 757?? um, good luck....

However I know nothing of service on board although I hear it is good and at the end of the day, I WOULD fly with them because they ARE safe...

[bushbolox]

And they (alledegly) provide an exellent after flight service on the MOD contracts according to a married friend in the armed forces. Must be the combats. Captains jackets are sooooo last year.:} The cabin crew have the nickname "monsters inc". The jury is still out on whether that is due to the colour of the uniform or an unfortunate multiple cases of genetic issues. Still the squaddies arent complaining.:E

[Pontious]

Nottingham & BRUPAX
If the Commander of an aircraft elects to, or is requested to, divert to an airfield that is not the original destination then it is for a bloody good reason! The term 'Operational reasons' encompasses various scenarios and a couple of weeks ago I was operating a flight MAN-SSH-MAN and we had to divert to LGW due to Crew Flight Time Limitations (FTL's), crew have a finite ammount of time available for duty dependant upon the local time that the crew reported, number of sectors to be flown. If the crew is going to exceed the available ammount of duty hours, they have the flexibility to exercise Discretion and extend by an ABSOLUTE maximum of 3 hours (or 2 hours on a Level2 variation). If the ammount of discretion isn't sufficient then they have NO OTHER OPTION but to land at the nearest convenient airfield otherwise thet may have their licences suspended. It is a legal requirement NOT a decision of convenience.
It is inconvenient for the pax. to continue their journeys by coach but have a little consideration for the crew. To get to the stage where they've had to divert due to Crew FTL's they would have been on duty for around 16 hours and awake for a few more. They also have to endure a coach journey back to their home base then drive themselves home, after putting up with pax's comments, accusations and threats due to the delays.
I operate on Excels' 'trashy' 757&767 fleet. Last week I operated 3 short haul flights and arrived both at destination and base between 25 & 50 mins early. And guess what- on arriving back at base 50 mins early from a Turkish airfield, some pax demanded vouchers for beverages in the terminal because we had arrived TOO EARLY for the people who were meeting them!!!!!!
My advice is to anyone caught up in delays is just to accept the situation, remember that there is an Army of people working to get those pax,planes and crews to wherever they are supposed to be going and don't shoot the messengers or give the crews hassle otherwise you'll be offloaded.
Enjoy.

[bianchi]

Flown with Excel 4 times in 4 yaers and is about to fly with them again on the 27th of June Gatwick - Chania - Gatwick.
Never had a problem,aircraft( B737-800 , B767-200)neat, clean,cabincrew compitant and friendly!Can recommend them!!:)

[Timba 2B]

I completely agree with Pontious' post. No airline or airline Captain would wish to divert an aircraft unless absolutely necessary. It is both inconvenient to the pax and crew and overall an extra expense which the airline would much rather avoid.
There are many reasons why a Captain would choose to divert - and as already mentioned, Flight Time Limitations (FTL) is one of them. Many airlines have their Hub at opposite ends of the country to their main operating airport base. If an aircraft goes tech down route and requires immediate grounding and servicing on arrival in the UK then chances are that the aircraft will have to divert to their Hub based airfield if not aleady flying there.
People see aviation as a surreal experience - (you're right it is) but forget that it is a means of transport. If your bus, train, or even your own car breaks down - not only will you be late arriving at your planned destination but more often than not you'll be paying a visit to the nearest mechanics first (obviously not you personally if you were travelling on a train or bus :p )
It is v.frustrating when these things happen. However, if we were to all try and remember that when things do go wrong we were all (pax and cr ew) in the same boat, then it would make dealing with the situation so much easier.

[Paracab]

Flew XL from Hurghada to Gatwick in 2005 on a 742 (very pleased, don't suppose I fly on one of those again).

Boarding was an utter free for all, safety brief was inaudible due to low volume level (is that legal?), around two hours late leaving, the food was passable, the only point of interest was when part of the window frame fell into my lap during turbulence.

The APU went u/s on the ground at LGW but it didn't really affect us as far I as I can recall.

Then it was just a three hour wait for the baggage due to a handlers strike but ultimately I don't think that was anything to do with XL.

Would I fly with them again? Yes, it wasn't the height of luxury but it got the job done.

[TSR2]

Thank you for your explanations of the possible reasons for an aircraft divert.

I do not intend to be cynical but there is another possible explanation for the diversion of Nottingham's flight.
Perhaps the airline instructed the captain to divert in order to utilise the aircraft to help clear the backlog of knock-on delays following the 26+hour delay to the Barbados-MAN-Gatwick service the previous day, and particularly as it appears that the aircrafts next rotation from Manchester was not until much later that day.

However, should I be unfortunate enough to experience a diversion, I will indeed remember that that the crew and passengers are all in the same boat.

For what its worth, I have travelled with Excel on B738's and B757's many times over the past few years and never experienced any delays and never been anything short of completely satisfied. Having said that, I always check the aircraft type prior to booking as I will not fly B767 in a 2-4-2 seating configuration.

[DON T]

Copied from a post on a holiday site:

'I was on Excels 2nd June flight from Gatwick. As people say we eventually took off at 11.15pm rather than 05.55am. An absolute nightmare http://www.thassos-forum.com/images/smiles/mad.gif Went to Thessoloniki and coached down to Kavala. Arrived in Limenaria after a total door to door journey of 28 hours.

Needless to say the Saturday was a 'right off' as we were all so kn*****d!! So we really lost 2 days out of 7.

Funny enough the trip back was spot on. Landed at Gatwick 30mins early.'

From the other posts on the site, Excel have many problems.

[IRRenewal]

Needless to say the Saturday was a 'right off' as we were all so kn*****d!! So we really lost 2 days out of 7.

What's a right off?

[DON T]

The opposite to a left off.

[All Ahead Full]

Flown with Excel serveral times to Turkey with no problems, the stuff they give to the kids is especially appreciated, some of the planes are a little tight on room, but no where in the league of some 'other' charters I have flown