Flybe

No complaints on travel agency booked return flights from Gatwick to Jersey through an advertisement in the Daily Mail. Allocated seats unlike most budget airlines. Two new types of aircraft for me, a propellor Dash 8 and the wonderful Brazilian built Embraer 175 Jet for the return. Crew pleasant, both flights on time and good value duty-​free cigarettes sold as Jersey is not part of the European Union. Check-​in lady at Gatwick gave us extra legroom emergency exit seats on the outbound. Both aircraft looked new, clean and well-​maintained.

Bad customer experience trying to navigate the website. Bad customer experience calling the call centre. When I first started looking into changing my partners flight, I was able to view an option to change the itinerary of his flight, as well as costs. But a week later, this option no longer appeared on the booking page. So, we called the call centre. First couple of attempts, all is well, and our calls are handled well, while we dithered and tried to decide what to do. Then one gentleman advised me that the flight we wanted to exchange didn’t exist (as he overlooked my departure airport change) and it went from bad to worse there. When we realised this was the case, we called back and spoke to a lady this time, who was quite animated about us trying to change a flight via the call centre rather than online in that…
…I’m wasting my money trying to change my flight via a call, I should go online. I explain I can’t see any option to do so. The conclusion our fine call centre operator gave me? I can’t use Google (the search engine, as the call centre person was a little confused during our discussion) as I wouldn’t be able to access my booking from there as it would use a different version — after a couple of attempts to explain that I use Google Chrome and wasn’t using a search engine, gave up and went with the lady’s demand that I use Internet Explorer.
Now I understand that Chrome versus IE may have it’s challenges, but I wasn’t aware that users of Chrome would not be able to experience the full pleasure of a working website (platform compatibility anyone?)… especially when I was able to not a week prior.
…and with our call centre lady, thats’ where we stalled, as despite my continual reminders that I was already in the website, logged into my account and looking at my booking, the lady kept on insisting that I type in
otherwise I wouldn’t be able to view the change itinerary option, and that she could see the option just find, in yellow. Again, I am using the wrong version. We didn’t progress any further, as I rebelled against being told how to type
into a URL.
Ultimately, the lady was so patronizing, that Flybe lost our fifty quid exchange to move flights, and my partner got a ferry instead with the money. Waiting on the response to our complaint (28 days response! Could it be any slower?) and I am regretting my flight booking next week.
Oh and six quid to book a seat? Hmph.

I have travelled with flybe a number of times between the UK and Europe, as first i found there pricing competitive, now there pricing is too high for what they offer. I can fly with BA, KLM, Virgin cheaper than Flybe.

So the theory is that this is a lower cost airline. Earlier this year I was booking return flights between Inverness and Gatwick. BA used to operate this service but you can still book through BA, it says it’s a BA flight operated by Flybe. I went online to and got a quote from Flybe, I then went online and got a quote from BA and they BA flight was cheaper. Ok it was only 25 but that is a couple of beers. Also if you take into account that Flybe want to charge me for checking in luggage that adds another 8 onto my saving.
The actual flights are fine, cabin staff are friendly. Just don’t take it for granted that they are cheaper than BA on this particular route.