I believe that flying is one of the finest ways to travel known to man. You get to ride in a technological marvel of the modern age, utilizing tons of engineering and physics to raise you high up into the atmosphere, traveling at a speed that would skin your eyeballs if you did it in a car, and in a few hours or more, you arrive at another location anywhere from a few hundred to thousands of miles away. The fact that there are a ton of people who have never experienced this mode of movement simply blows my mind.

For those of you too scared to do it, you really need to educate yourselves as to the safety of modern airliners and the industry in general. You are, statistically speaking, more likely to be struck by lightning than an airliner crash. Heck, you have a 1 in 6 chance of being in a car accident in your lifetime, yet the chance of an airplane crash is almost insignificant. The engineering, safety protocols, and care with which the planes are flown gives me great confidence in this way of travel and I really don’t think there’s anything to be concerned about in this day and age.

I thought I would do a quick rundown of the airline carriers that I traveled with on my trip to Australia, giving kudos and jeers where appropriate. Now, I am fully realizant that most experiences with airlines are unique, and the major factor about using a particular airline is its long-running history, but I also believe in the power of a good first impression, and since I’m an infrequent flyer, that’s pretty important where I’m concerned. So, here’s my views on the various flights I had this time around:

Flight(s): MSP to PHX, PHX to LAX (Feb 13th)

This was my first time on a US Airways or America West flight (my tickets were coded with AmWest, but they merged, so it’s the same company, and my flights were all US Airways flights, codeshared with AmWest) and I have to say I was fairly impressed, although I wasn’t swept off my feet. My first leg was in an Airbus A320 and it was a rather dodgy-looking plane, but the pilot flew it very nicely and the flight was smooth and calming. It also helped that I had an entire row to myself and the rows ahead and behind were also empty. Service was a simple drink only; no snack was served, which I’ve come to expect from USA airlines, given their state of perpetual on-the-brink-of-bankruptcy.

The second leg was on an Airbus A319 which was a better-looking plane, but it was flown like a cow and the takeoff/landing was rough, the flight bumpy, and the seats were stuffed with people. Again, only a drink was served, although some passenger a few seats back bitched loudly about it and the extremely-effeminate steward brought him a packet of chips saying that he, “really shouldn’t be doing this, but I’m a nice guy.” Well, that’s all warm and happy, but where’s my damned bag of chips?

Stewards/esses were nice and professional but not overly friendly, facilities were decent and clean. I would fly on US Airways/AmWest again, but it wouldn’t be something I’d write home about.

Flight(s): LAX to SYD (Feb 13th – 15th), SYD to ADL (Feb 15th), SYD to LAX (Mar 19th)

Qantas is the definitive airline of Australia, and you can tell why. They are, bar none, the way to fly if you’re crossing the Pacific Ocean to one of the south seas locations. The planes are state-of-the-art, the entertainment options appreciable, the staff friendly and courteous and generally fun, the food superb for airline fare, and the prices aren’t too bad, either.

My flight over was simply wonderful, for lack of better words. We had excellent stewards serving our aisle, two chaps that clearly had a lot of fun with their job, yet were professional, attentive, and thoughtful. They remembered what I was drinking, for the love of Pete, and brought me another without prompting. They made jokes and chided with the passengers as they passed, and were fast and accurate with their serving and cleaning.

The plane both there and back was a 747-400ER Longreach, Qantas’ flagship of their fleet, and a damned fine one at that. The one over was the typical Qantas red and white, while the one back was a big older and had the Aboriginal paintings all over it. The entertainment on-demand system was broken on the flight back, which was pretty darn annoying, but they tried hard to correct it, unsuccessful though their efforts were. Seats are comfortable and fairly wide given the economy section.

Qantas food is by far the best I’ve had on any flight. Not every single piece is perfect, but on the whole, it’s really excellent. The other thing is that you get a LOT of it. If you are hungry on a Qantas flight, it is definitely your own fault, as you get drinks, then dinner, then dessert, then hot chocolate, then a goodie bag, then some fruit, and then breakfast. (or lunch/dinner, depending on the timing) Other amenities include hot towels near the end of the flight and typically a Qantas “care” bag, consisting of a sleeping mask, a pair of socks, and a toothbrush with a tube of toothpaste. Strangely enough, I did NOT get this on the trip back, which I was annoyed about, as I had never NOT gotten one. I’m unsure of that reason.

The flight back’s stewards were less-than-impressive, I have to say, probably the worst I’ve ever had on a Qantas flight. (QF11, Mar 19th, in case you’re a Qantas employee reading) They were nice enough, but they didn’t talk much, weren’t very fast, did things in odd order, didn’t come by much, and didn’t take care of the drunks ahead of us keeping an entire section awake through most of the “night” part of the flight. Quite the disappointment, really.

However, on the whole, Qantas is lovely and I’ll be happy to fly them again and again if I’m going that way in the world.

Flight: ADL to SYD (Mar 19th)

The flight from Adelaide to Sydney scared me, as Virgin charged my wife A$110 for excess luggage on the way over, and the woman behind the counter actually laughed at her, which would have caused me to deck her if I had been there. However, on the way back, we got an extremely nice woman who only charged us A$50 when she should have charged us A$80 or more for all 4 bags and was nice as punch. The flight was much improved as well over other Virgin flights I’ve had — the snack was just a drink, although you could purchase food, and since we were seated in different locations on the plane, the stewardesses were even nice enough to come to me to get money for my wife several rows back…it was really cute.

The flight itself was smooth and quick and painless on the 737-300 that we were in. Very good service for the price (A$150 per person or so).

Flight: LAX to DEN, DEN to MSP (Mar 19th)
There are few words in language to describe how great I feel about my flights with Frontier Airlines. I was a Frontier virgin before these two hops, and boy have I missed out on the pleasures of flying with a really excellent company all these years. Starting off, they run clean, well-maintained planes — A319s and A320s mostly. They are decorated with their own signature forest green carpeting and seats, which looks very inviting. Everything is very clean and neat. The outside of the plane has the airline name on it, and the colors are green and white, but there is a different animal painted on the tail of each plane — I flew on “Lobos” (a wolf) and “Lilly” (a panther) and her cub, whom I forget the name of. I thought it was a cute gimmick — pretty impressive walking around DEN and looking at all the animals lined up at the gates.

The seats have TONS of room — more than the Qantas flights! I had tons and tons of room to stretch out my legs and not be crammed next to the guy beside me — I was completely blown away. On the back of each seat is your own TV monitor that displays DirectTV television shows — 24 channels of them for $6 during the flight (free preview while you’re on the ground), and 2 feature-length movies ($8 apiece, free previews). There is one free channel of documentaries and one channel that shows your plane’s progress on a map, along with other fun details like airspeed and altitude. And the headphones are free, and you get to keep them! Mind you, they’re not top-of-the-line by any means — clearly meant to be thrown away — but you get your own pair.

Ontop of having neat, clean, and comfortable planes, the staff is superb. They are fun, happy individuals who obviously love coming to work every day. The stewardesses were cutting jokes both on and off the loudspeaker, laughing and joking with passengers, and even striking up long conversations with them in the rear of the plane. They were quick and courteous with their service and, in fact, rather over-generous with their portions. Both flights served a soft drink or juice or alcholic beverage ($5 extra for that), along with one or two glasses of water, AND a bag of chips. In fact, since I was near the back, they gave me the rest of the can of Diet Coke (“we have to throw them away, anyway”, she said) and gave me two packets of chips since my neighbor was asleep!

The flight itself was heavenly Take-offs were fast and smooth, with lots of power behind them, and cruising was high and fast. Apparently the pilots of Frontier like to run things quickly, as we climbed all the way to 39,400 feet and ran it up to 560mph for the duration of each flight. The landing into Minneapolis was pretty routine, but the landing into Denver was absolutely textbook He came in, 180mph and full flaps, and set it down so softly that I never even felt the wheels hit and he used NO reverse thrust to slow the plane down. How many times can you say THAT about a flight? The stewardesses were so impressed that they came on the loudspeaker and said, “Give our pilot a big hand!” and so we gladly did and gave the man a round of applause for the landing. Absolutely amazing.

I tell you — few airlines come even close to the level of service that I received on Frontier and I’ll gladly recommend them again and again to my friends and family. Just incredible.

Again, if you’ve not flown or hate it, you really need to stsrt looking at it as a great way to travel and experience the world. To be so close to true engineering and technological marvels is something that few of us get to experience, but we can — up there in the air.