TRANSAVIA review : 31 May 2008 : by S Flyte

Customer Rating : 2/5

I flew with Transavia twice and both times flights were delayed considerably. One flight was supposed to be out of Rotterdam for a flight to Rome, but they ended up bussing us to Amsterdam with a much delayed departure time. It all seemed very chaotic and the staff never seemed to know what was going on. From my experience I would be extremely cautious about using this airline if you are on a tight schedule and are depending on making any transfers or connections. On another flight it took over 30 minutes to get through check-in. One minute they are telling us the flight is delayed and the next making announcements that it last call to get on the flight - only to wait at the gate for another hour. Also check the prices all the way through the process before you make any plans. The initial price that showed up on the internet looked good, but when I went through the final process to book, fees were added on that just about doubled the price. Maybe I just had an unfortunate string of bad luck, but from my experience I would not recommend this airline

TRANSAVIA review : 31 May 2008 : by Kathy Nader

Customer Rating : 2/5

AMS - IBZ. Unfortunately this is the only airline serving Ibiza direct. Booking a ticket on their website is a nightmare if you are an apple-user. The website freezes at the most inconvenient moments. Departure time from Amsterdam horrible at 5 am, but using internet check in I was able to add an hour to my nights sleep. Why isnt it possible to use internet check in for the return flight? Flight out operated by Miami Air International with nice aircraft and good crew. Flight back in cramped 737 with hideous interior, no-personality crew and all information including flight safety in Dutch only. Food and drink for sale at outrageous prices. Flights more or less on time and arrival and gate connection as usual delayed as the arrival of the airplane seemed to take the airport by complete surprise.

TRANSAVIA review : 11 May 2008 : by T van der Velden

Customer Rating : 1/5

Transavia promotes itself as a low cost carrier, but at times they are expensive (as on lots of destinations they have no competition) and have no service whatsoever, except an internet check-in the day before departure from the Netherlands, very necessary to avoid bad seats in their very cramped planes. For the return flight I have to turn up 3 hours in advance by taxi transfer to avoid bad seats also. Everything onboard has to be paid for and it is expensive. They are usually delayed. It happened on all of my last flights with them. If you want a pleasant start of your holiday, avoid this airline.

Transavia - by D Censi

23 April 2008  Customer Trip Rating :

RTM-FCO-RTM. I flew many times to Rome Fiumicino with this airline. They are not a low cost carrier but sometimes very expensive, only very seldom they offer a few discounted seats on selected routes. From Rotterdam Transavia has only few destinations the major part are departing from AMS. The delays on the route to Rome and back decreased since 2007 when very heavy. They offer seat choice, via internet, only when departing from the Netherlands. Food and beverages only on sale. The seats are, for tall people like I am, very small excepts those in the front rows which are mostly reserved for people with handicaps. The handling of the baggage at the arrival in Rotterdam is very quick due to the small airport and airline traffic.

Transavia - by A Larmonie

1 April 2008  Customer Trip Rating :

Booked two return trips. One was to Italy in Feb and the other one was just a few weeks ago to Copenhagen for a very attractive fare. If flying from Holland you can check in online 24 hour with seat assignments or self service kiosk. If not check in manually but still get a seat assignment. Which means no pushing for or standing in the line to wait for the plane to arrive. Free check baggage allowance! And during the flight entertainment. All flights left on time and cabin crew smiling, talkative and provide a great service.

Transavia - by J Jackson

7 March 2008  Customer Trip Rating :

Amsterdam - Valencia. Being Dutch I have some loyalty towards this airline, but it seems very hard to make a reservation through their website and at least a dozen times I gave up and booked a competing airline. I am an Apple user and i usually get stuck some where after selecting the flights. They must loose a ton of business. The website has a cheerful 'problems with the website, click here' button, but anything you say is ignored, what a mess. This time I managed to book a return to Valencia, about five weeks ahead of time. Transavia then called me about 4 times and changed every thing they could about my trip, claiming the schedules had changed. Service on the phone was friendly and flexible. It is indeed true, the tax thing at this airline is outrageous. Unless this airline has to pay more tax than other airlines (which I doubt), I think they are scamming the passengers. It is not possible to book a cheap flight with them even if the 'fare' is 1 euro, you'll always end up paying 130 euros or more. This flight was on time, and service was okay. Seat pitch is standard (tight). All in all: there are better options out there!

Transavia - by R Tavares

19 February 2008  Customer Trip Rating :

Have flown 4 times with Transavia last year. Beginning by the not so positive aspects of this airline: they are known as a "low-cost" airline but I paid around 300 euros for each go-return even booking in advance, so not really low-cost. The taxes are horribly high, but the fare is also not that cheap. Onboard, got emergency exits every time - in a regular seat, the legroom is practically non-existent. A small bottle of water or a coffee for 2.5€ is a bit too much. In the other hand, smiling and efficient crew. A lot of information given from the flight-deck during the flights. They have IFE that helps to make time pass by faster. They don't charge for each bag. They fly direct to Eindhoven. All in all I would say it's a reliable and fair airline, so it deserves 3 stars.

Transavia - by Mark Wadham

14 November 2007  Customer Trip Rating :

Orly to Djerba and Monastir to Orly. I regretted not being able to check in online or select a seat before setting off for the airport. Cabin baggage limit of 5 kg is ridiculously low. Onboard, seats were more comfortable than I had for and the plane was clean. Crew efficient and friendly. The only reading material was the brochure of food and items for sale - no inflight magazine, so a longer flight could prove boring if you are not prepared for this situation. The return flight was punctual arriving at Orly 5 minutes early and bags were unloaded very quickly. The sandwich I bought was fresh and tasty and priced at €4.50.

Transavia - by Richard Eveleens

22 June 2007  Customer Trip Rating :

Booked flights Rotterdam - Toulon - Rotterdam. Flights outbound not on time, and staff managed to delay the 1 hour late flight even more ( 2 hours total) by calling cleaning services to late, and let pax extreme slow board. Inbound was 15 minutes late, but arrived on time. Seats in the back had less legroom then in the front, as I found out on the way back, where it was more comfortable (and it was the same plane). Good thing is that they give seat numbers, and you can select those by checking in online, so now fighting for the 'best' seats.

Transavia - by Paul Teeuwen

5 June 2007  Customer Trip Rating :

Amsterdam-Madrid and Alicante-Amsterdam end of May 2007. Good flights for a LCC. Booked a bit late so did not get the best prices, still a good deal.

Transavia - by Rob Borzillo

28 May 2007   Customer Trip Rating : n/a

RTM to FCO. Transavia out of Rotterdam. Train ride to Rotterdam was a little over an hour from Amsterdam, then took a bus to the airport from the train station. Despite the airport being far, it is well connected. Very nice airport - small and compact. Being a Sunday evening flight, airport was nearly deserted, with only a flight leaving to Malaga a half hour before. Good cafe on top floor with views of the runway. The flight was fine. Typical LCC experience. They sell food and promote vacations with Transavia like crazy. Arrived in FCO on time. Beats flying to CIA!

Transavia - by Gianni Carta

26 February 2007   Customer Trip Rating : n/a

I should have listened to friends that warned me about flying with Transavia! FCO to Rotterdam was supposed to take off at 20.00, but after two hours of delay with no information given, it was announced that it would take off at 2.00am! Then we were rushed to a grotty restaurant about to close, only to find some revolting cold food on plastic plates waiting for us. We boarded after 2.00am, but hang on a minute, now we were not going to Rotterdam but AMS! We finally landed at 4.00am. Transavia organised coaches to take us from AMS to Rotterdam. For me it wouldn't make sense to take them as I live closer to AMS and Rotterdam airport does not have any train connections. I took a taxi and arrived home just in time for going to work. Needless to say that my request for compensation was denied. The price of the ticket was rather expensive, for a supposedly "low-cost" airline, rather a low quality unreliable airline. Avoid it if you can.

Transavia - by Martin Allan
19 February 2007

PIK-AMS- PIK. Decided to try Transavia for a change to KLM and was surprised. Check in at Prestwick was fast and easy. Flight left on time from PIK and with the flight being less than half full was invited to move to a leg room seat. They showedcartoons and Mr Bean sketches. For an hours flight this was a nice welcome. Service was good and the crew seemed happy to be working. For once I didn't land at the far away runway at Schipol so for landing at 1430, I was through customs and collected my luggage and on the train by 1455. Was travelling home on the day of the manic snow weather and my flight was one of the few to the UK that was still running. Was told at check in of a 1hour delay so didnt mind being informed. Once on the aircraft we were told that we would have to be de-iced and the estimated time was 70mins. As a way of apology the crew offered complimentary drink and we were just sat at the departure gate, all closed up and sealed waiting to go do the de-icing station. This happened after approx 45mins and we were on the runway about 90mins later than scheduled. Made the time up to PIK and the crew couldn't be more apologetic. A faultless airline, and a great change to other low-cost carriers.

Transavia - by O Banderas
5 October 2006

AMS-VRN last weekend. First time on transavia, KLM platinum member. Transavia was much better than KLM. Brand new 737-700, nice seat, staff and entertainment. Worth paying for drinks/food. On-time and consiseant / professional. Well done.

Transavia - by Jeroen van der Ende
13 May 2006

Unfortunately Transavia is the only airline flying the route Amsterdam- Marsa Alam (Egypt). The flight from Amsterdam was okay, operated with a 737-700 aircraft. The return flight a week later in a 737-800, and probably Transavia tried to break the world record "How to put as many people in a 737 as possible". The legspace was horrific, especially for a 6 hour flight (with a stop in Hurghada). The staff was grumpy and Rude, not what you expect from Transavia. As this flight departed around dinner time you would expect that enough catering was on board, but no. My wife and I were lucky, we got what we wanted to eat, but the persons sitting in the row in front of us had to hear that there where no more sandwiches. Other food was also sold out. Great service! No food for 6 hours (and most people were picked up from the hotels around 15:00 hours). All in all we arrived safely in Amsterdam, but we promised ourselves never to fly with Transavia again.

Transavia - by Mike Preston
2 April 2006

AGP-AMS. Despite the horrendous crowding and long check in lines at Malaga airport, the check in was fast and so was security. We departed slightly late but made up most of the time before arriving at Schiphol. The seating is extremely cramped - and I am only 5ft 7 - and the air quality on board was noticeably bad on this full flight but overall it was an adequate experience and the ticket cost me €110 (all included) which I think represents fair value. No complaints at all!

Transavia - by Ron van Drimmelen
28 October 2005

Flying Transavia for sometimes 3 times a month (Nice-Amsterdam) I can only conlude that the price/quality ratio is more than excellent. If you have the possibility to book in advance, you get a flight for about 110 euro. For that amount of money you can expect no service, but you get it. The only things which would be nice: another edition of mister Bean, as this one I have seen over 30 times as well as a changing catering offer. These 2 factors seem to make the flight last longer every time.

Transavia - by Stef van Hout
12 October 2005

After a vacation in Malaga I had to fly home (Amsterdam) with Transavia Airlines. Because one of the airplanes got technical problems, they had to choose which flight would be delayed. Unfortunately it was my flight. I had to wait for more than 6 hours before I could fly home and there was nobody from Transavia present to answer questions. At Amsterdam I took a complaint form with me and I delivered it. I got a letter saying that due to lots of complaints, I would have to wait for approximately 6-8 weeks. At this moment I'm waiting for more than 9 weeks and I've heard nothing from Transavia customer relations - I tried to phone them, but the customer relations (CR) office doesn't want to speak directly with the clients. So the only one I could reach was the booking office and they were willing to ask how long it would take. Depending on the person I spoke with, it would take another 2-4 weeks. This means I probably have to wait for an answer more than double the time they suggested! Booking personell also told me that CR was working on complaints of 15 july, a week later they told me CR was working on complaints of 4 july. This suggest that they are working LIFO, a very strange concept for a CR office.

Transavia - by Wim Sibon
4 August 2005

AMS to Marsa Alan in Egypt (RMF). During check-in the family in front of us had troubles to check-in because they booked via Internet and their youngest kid was booked together with the mother but according to the attendant this was impossible and there were two people with the same name on one ticket. This took a while. Thereafter they wanted to take their buggy to the gate but that was not possible. Because of changed labour law it was not possible and the people had to take their child by hand. The father told that they had flown the week before with KLM Cityhopper, but according to the attendant that was way different. Transavia is KLM, Cityhopper is KLM, KLM is KLM, so actually we can say it's way different. Then we had to check in our diving gear. And we faced the very strange rule form Transavia that as soon as they can see that your luggage takes sporting gear you'll have to pay €50/return flight independent of the amount of kg, up to 30kg. Otherwise you pay €5/kg. This rule sucks. On the way back of our 5.5 hour flight from Marsa Alan, we departed with a delay of 45mins at 10:45PM. It took over two ours to get something to drink or eat, and when the attendants can to the middle row's, most of the stuff was sold out. This sucks, specially on a late evening/night flight. In the future whenever it is possible to avoid Transavia I will certainly do so!

Transavia - by A James
28 July 2005

Stansted to Rotterdam (return) at the weekend and found the service to be excellent. Outbound flight departed STN 7 mins early and arrived at RTM 15 mins early. Aircraft was clean, modern and comfortable (even had IFE) and the friendly crew completed the cabin service at a sprint in order to get to everybody in the 31 mins airborne. Inbound flight only held up by the usual/inevitable/expected/annoying UK ATC delays. Two comments: Transavia need to expand their on-line check-in facility to airports other than AMS and RTM and Rotterdam airport needs to add more Immigration Officers or train the two that are on duty there to work faster. Would definitely fly with Transavia again though.

Transavia - by Dave Morgan

28 January 2005

Have just returned from a trip between Stansted and Rotterdam on Transavia. I really can't speak highly enough of them as a budget airline, they genuinely blew the other UK airlines into the dust with just about every facet of their service. For a start, at Stansted the check-in desk was next to the door and had NO queue - then I was delighted when I was offered a 'window seat' and given a specific seat number - something companies like Easyjet and Ryanair fall down on with their 'cattle' approach to seating allocation at the gate. The flight itself was a dream and was impressed that the cabin staff look like 'proper' flight attendants rather than the open-neck shirt approach of Easyjet. Rotterdam airport itself was wonderful and compact and the flight back even had in-flight cartoons and comedy shows, despite it only being a 35 minute flight! You honestly don't get that kind of service and facility from the other budget airlines, and considering that Transavia was the cheapest option to the Amsterdam area by some margin, its all the more remarkable.

Transavia - by Robert Spano

23 December 2004

I flew with Transavia from London Stansted to Rotterdam and back in November and found the flight far better than other low-cost airlines I have used and better than the experience I've had with some full-price airlines. The 737 we flew was modern, clean and comfortable. We left on time and arrived early both ways. When we left Rotterdam there was a KLM flight leaving for London Heathrow just before us and their passengers were paying full fare to fly a turboprop. For a short flight the lack of free meal was no problem. I'd recommend them anytime.

Transavia - by Mark Schugard

31 October 2004

Having flown regularly for about 15 years with all Dutch Charter Airlines, both my wife and I have come to the conclusion that the present level of service of Transavia easily qualifies as being the worst. In the past, Transavia didn't reach the level of DutchBird, Martinair or the late Air Holland; after the recent cut-downs, it's really down the drain. The a-la-carte food service is offering (even at airline standards) mediocre food at highly inflated prices. Over the years we noticed the cabin crew getting more and more uncourteous and lately even plain rude. The most hilarious example of the shoddy way the staff seems to deal with their job is that not even the captain knows how to pronounce the names of destinations that have been 'served' by them for more than 10 years (and we're talking about simple names like Heraklion or Karpathos and not exotic ones like Ougadougou). The seating spaces are the worst I ever encountered, both by design as well as maintenance. Trying to stretch your legs, by untangling your knees from behind your ears could easily lead to sexual harassment lawsuits from fellow travellers 2 seats in front, behind and beside you and on 2 occasions we were seated in defective seats, having to bear the brunt of barking cabin staff ordering us to 'finally put that thing in the upright position' at take off and landing.

Transavia - by Ian Shuttleworth

2 September 2004

We flew from Palma de Mallorca to Manchester on flight number HV 8428 on the 29th August 2004. I would just like to say on behalf of myself and my family, that this was the first time we had flown with Transavia, and I was a little apprehensive at first, however the flight was one of the best flights we have taken in all the years we have been flying. The cabin crew were so very courteous and always smiling and happy all the way through the whole flight, and not just as you boarded the aircraft. The aircraft was very clean. The complimentary Sandwiches were very nice, and the cabin crew could not do enough to make everyone feel comfortable. We would also like to thank you for the nice hot face towels and the blankets for our two children to keep them warm as they flew home. Well done Transavia, your airline is now at the top of our list, you run your airline like it should be run, we left our flight feeling very well looked after and happy, what a superb finish you gave us all at the end of our holiday to Spain. Once again, well done Transavia, I will certainly like to fly with you again very soon, and I will pass on the good news to all of my friends.

Transavia - by C Visser

28 July 2004

I fly Transavia Airline frequently as well as the Basiq Air service they introduced. Since the flying time between the served European airports is never long, I think their Basiq service is adequate. On business trips we often spend 2-3 hours in our cars without any catering at all, so I think that the sandwich and drink you can buy onboard won't contribute to starving. FA's are friendly, flights are as a rule on schedule (if not, ATC is to blame). So, I am quite content with this airline.

Transavia Airlines - by K Post

31 May 2004

Reading all these comments, especially the one about serving drinks after take off and the fact that this person had to wait one hour before he got his lunch, I am sure you will fly Transavia again, because it's Holland's cheapest airline. A KLM ticket will cost you twice or sometimes three times the price, so I think you won't mind having to do without an after take off drink if you fly Transavia again, think about all the cocktails and bottles of champagne you will save flying them instead of KLM

Transavia Airlines - by Andrew Wilson

2 March 2003

I have flown many times on Transavia from Amsterdam and Rotterdam. I find the leg-room to be far worse than any other airline I have ever used, which is very strange as the Dutch are some of the tallest people in the world! The service has deteriorated since the introduction of the Basiqair Service - Transavias' shot at being a low-cost carrier - compare prices before booking any low fares with them, their fares to Barcelona from AMS can be anything but.

Transavia Airlines - by Wendi Mitilinakis

9 January 2003

I took a flight from Heraklion to Amsterdam back in October on Transavia and it was the worst flight I've ever had in my life. We had a 7am departure but couldn't board the plane until 830 AM due to laws. Okay that I get, but the lack of organization they showed in getting the people onboard, the seats that are far too narrow even for someone thin like me - the food was awful and the filth that was on the cabin walls and seats was inexcusable.

Transavia Airlines - by H Habraken

01 May 2002

I flew with Transavia on a Basiq air flight to Barcelona last year. Service on board was basic but not unpleasant. Professional behaviour even to very unpleasant travellers. On the way back, polite service and a captain with witty weather reports and flight status. Much more pleasant to travel with than easyJet!!

Transavia Airlines - by  J Harland

28 February 2002

I was shocked when trying to check in at Schiphol Airport, an additional fee was requested by Transavia to cover 'additional insurance costs' due to the September 11th incident. Apparently this additional fee (Euro 15.00) was not included in the ticket price when the ticket was issued. By the way, it was cash or nothing - no cash - no flight. Not quite what you'd expect from "the company voted 'friendliest' Dutch airline by the travel industry" according to CEO Peter J. Legroe. Transavia is fixing this by including the additional cost into the ticket price from 3rd March 2002. Ah well, there goes the duty free shopping money.

Transavia Airlines - by C. Schmitz

I flew Transavia Airlines from Porto to Amsterdam as a flight instead of a cancelled KLM-flight. Aircraft was a Boeing 737-300 with old seats. Staff was very slow - on this 2.5 hr trip the dinner was served after about 1 hour. There was no welcome-drink short after take-off like KLM serves, and at the end of the flight the staff were very busy. Seat pitch was a little bit poor but for a trip like this acceptable. I think Transavia Airlines is not bad, but next time I want to fly only with KLM.

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