Mumsnet Talk

Need to book flights for the summer to US, virgin and BA both have sales ending today. Flights are same price and times of both work well, so any advice on who are best to fly with with children, they will be 8, 5 and 1 when we go?

Any advice? Need to book tonight!

BA. I always fly BA or Emirates, having tried Virgin once <<never again>>

Virgin. By far the best imho

Virgin fan here. Far more personal touch compared to BA and all of the flight attendants seem to love kids. Must be Mr Bransons training

BA were very efficient but i felt far more worried that DS would scream the plane down than i did on the Virgin flight. A bit more uptight on BA!

Should add, only used BA once but Virgin numerous times and only as far as Chicago everytime.

We Used Thomas Cook for Florida. Thats an experience i will never repeat

Aaah. I guess that's the thing, I'm out of the small child phase now so would value non-screechy experience over child-friendly one.

<<grumpyarse>>

Thansk I am erring to virgin, as sound more kid friendly on website I am going to chicago

You will get good flight times on Virgin for Chicago. Day flight in when i went and night flight back if its still the same.

Have a good Holiday

Thanks cheeky, have booked 11am flight in and 6pm flight home. All booked!

My sister works in the Virgin skys and loves children!

Standards on VA have declined markedly over the years and their economy class product is not great nor as innovative as it once was. The cost cutting across the board to this airline are immense and service standards have declined as a result.

I have also seen indifferent crews on both airlines over the years along with good service from both. I have to say that out of these two I would choose BA to fly with as their economy class product is better and also their crews tend to be more mature (some of VA crew tend to regard the self loading freight i.e the pax as a nuisance). Also VA flight bags for children hardly contain anything worthy of note.

BA everytime. Like Mumblechum, I only fly BA and Emirates now. 10 - 15 years ago I used to fly Virgin all the time to Florida but when we went with them 18 months ago we were seriously underwhelmed so have switched back to BA who we went with 3 and 4 years ago.

BA without a doubt. Always book BA over Virgin. Had one bad experience on Virgin a few years ago, and vowed to only use BA (or any alternative airline) in future.

BA. Virgin are the second worst airline I have used. Air France being the worst and I have flown a lot.

Oh gawd. Not BA. Anyone but BA. I've never flown Virgin, but they surely can't be as bad as BA. The only airline to have completely lost my bags so I've never gotten them back, bumped in all sorts of places, and cared not a jot when another passenger attacked me on a flight (he was so drunk). I now pay extra not to fly them...