Harvs.com.au – Tom Harvey | Mg Midget | Austin Healey Sprite | Wine Reviews | Wine | Australian Wine | Beer |

I have a simple formula when selecting an airline – I am 6′ 2″ so it doesn’t matter what economy seat I’m in I’m going to be uncomfortable after 24 hours. So the cheapest fare is the fairest fare in my mind, as there’s more to spend at the other end and I certainly can’t afford business.

When I enquired with a travel agent friend of mine she said the cheapest fare coming up in the system was Etihad, but that they’d never sold it before. She asked if I wanted to be the proverbial guinea pig and give it ago and let them know how it was? I figured it couldn’t be any worse than the last flight I’d taken to the UK on Brunei Airways – Worst Airline Ever (well not that I’ve flow with every carrier, but it was the worst carrier I’ve ever flow with).

After initially checking in to EY451 & EY053 on the 16/01/09 I must admit I was a bit worried. The woman behind the counter must have been having a bad day. She wasn’t rude, she was just less than talkative, not even asking if I had any seating preference, it was literally “Passport?” and “Here is your boarding pass” (it kind of had an Easy Jet feel to it).

But my concerns were short lived! The seats I’d been given were great (aisle seats) and I couldn’t believe how much the seats actually reclined. They reclined beyond that critical point where you constantly feel that you are going to fall forward while you are sleeping. This allowed me to pretty much sleep the whole way to Abu Dhabi. The food wasn’t quite Tetsuya’s, but was good as far as Airline food went.

On the leg from Abu Dhabi to Geneva, being well rested I took full advantage of the in Flight entertainment. The cabin crew were also fantastic (two in particular) a French couple who were from outside Paris, who now worked together as hosties and were now based in Abu Dhabi. They had many a suggestion on how to keep travel costs down in Europe, where to go, where not to go, etc.

So I’d be more than happy to recommend and fly with Etihad again, and am certainly not dreading the trip home (EY054 & EY454 on the 28/02/09) as much as I usually would.