First Choice Airways

My daughter (civil servant) has just moved from Germany to Cyprus and me and the present Mrs Treelo are off to visit her (+son-in-law and grandchildren) at the end of August. We are taking a first ever flight with First Choice Airways and, though they were not the cheapest flights available, we chose them for two main reasons. First, they go from Manchester which is only a 50 minute drive from home and, they take off (and land) at what I call sensible times and not silly o'clock in the morning.

Does anyone have any experience - good, bad or indifferent - flying with this airline? All contributions gratefully received [:)]

[Nottingham Nick]

I can't remember reading many TRs here, but know I there are lots of threads about First Choice over on TheDibb.

Not many are from frequent fliers, and a lot are posted by people with very high expectations of air travel, [;)] but there are a lot of constructive posters over there.

Nick

I flew FCA back in 2003 in PE and had a very pleasant flight with them to ANU.

Of course they have now changed their LH cabins.

I believe they are ok- not quite to the standard of Monarch Scheduled who offer newspapers etc on intra Europe flights.

FYI it wont be much longer until there name will be lost forever as they will combine the Thomsonfly and First Choice, following the merger of TUI and FC last year, and will become TUIFly from later in the year I believe.

I have flown with FCA short haul (Greece, Turkey, Morocco, Spain) many time over the last few years.

The leg room is pretty tight and the service nothing special but the flight attendants are always friendly and the attitude of all staff generally good.

I know as a charter airline they are prone to problems but I have not suffered these other than a 4 hour delay in Mallorca because the aircraft got stuck in Greece when ATC went on strike there. During the delay time we were kept well informed and given vouchers.

Does anyone have any idea what type of aircraft FCA use for their Cyprus trips. [:)]

Flew with FC to FAO last week.

Headsets £2.50 ew and no time for a film anyway, but not something I'm bothered about. Didn't book any flight meals and neither did 80% of the aircraft, just bought a cup of tea on the return which was £1.70 but it was very large and pretty good.

Legroom exceptionally tight and I'm only 5'2', worse than Ryanair to Spain last year!

Flights on time both ways and staff were exceptionally polite and professional.

As it was such a short flight I didn't have a problem with space but wouldn't want to have stayed in that seat for much longer, although I know their long haul flights have more legroom.

Would I use them again? Yes, as it was cheaper than any other LCC and flight timings were excellent.

I believe the aircraft was an Airbus A320 but they may use something different/larger to Cyprus, they certainly did when I used them a few years ago to Paphos.

Jilly

Just as an aisde, the whole FCA fleet will be changing in the coming months once they combine with Thomsonfly. I believe the 320s are staying but the 321s and some 757s are going.

We have used FCA a few times, more recently in May of this year to menorca.We have found them to be punctual and their CC to be very helpful and polite.I echo previous posts with regard to tight legroom but we got extra legroom both ways for £60 for the two of us which I thought was pretty reasonable[^]. I would certainly use them again.

NOC