|
|
|
Zoom Airlines Passenger Reviews and Zoom Airlines Customer Trip Reports
|
|
|
|
|
ZOOM AIRLINES review : 9 September 2008 : by Edward Impey
|
Customer Rating : 4/5 |  |
Sadly I was a victim of the Zoom demise having been stranded in Bermuda for several extra days and
getting home via the USA after spending an extra £1590. What astounded me most was the total
disinterest of the insurance companies. I should say however that my outbound flight was punctual,
the food was OK and even the entertainment did not dissapoint. The premium seat was better than
expected and although it was not even close to a business class experience it was worth the extra.
The crew were cheerful but one got the impression they were the people who couldn't get a job with a
proper airline. Basically there is room in the market for this style of airline, it just needs to be
run a lot better.
28TH AUGUST 2008 :
ZOOM AIRLINES COLLAPSES & CEASED TRADING
Zoom Airlines has today admitted that the company is applying to go into administration, amidst financial difficulties facing the troubled airline.
"Zoom Airlines Ltd based at Gatwick and Zoom Airlines Inc based in Ottawa, Canada, have sought creditor protection by filing legal notices
of intention to appoint an administrator in both the UK and Canada," said Zoom executive chairman Hugh Boyle.
The announcement was made after one of Zoom Airlines planes was detained at Glasgow Airport on 28th August for the non-payment of air traffic
control charges.
ZOOM AIRLINES review : 27 August 2008 : by L Mazur
|
Customer Rating : 3/5 |  |
My younger daughter and I travelled from Gatwick to Vancouver - experience was pleasant and the
cabin crew great. Two of the crew in particular made our flight more special and looked after us
very well. I would have liked to have placed my comments directly onto the Zoom website, but to no
avail.
ZOOM AIRLINES review : 20 August 2008 : by Teresa Abbruzzese
|
Customer Rating : 1/5 |  |
Please think twice before booking with Zoom. Read through all these comments, and you will see
familiar trends. I flew from Toronto to Rome (Fiumicino), where the woman at the check-in counter
in Toronto did not mention that I was way over the baggage limitation. However, when I flew back to
Toronto from Rome, the Zoom check-in staff in Rome were the most unfriendly and egotistical people
you could possible deal with. In order to be able to board the plane I had to pay the hefty fine of
$320 Euro. So be careful, Zoom might allure you with low fares, but you will pay double the price
if you go over the baggage allowance. Makes for a very paranoid journey!
ZOOM AIRLINES review : 15 August 2008 : by John Wood
|
Customer Rating : 4/5 | |
Premium Economy Gatwick-Vancouver-Calgary. All flights on time, seats same size as economy but with
adequate leg room, covered in black leather, padding was very good and comfortable for this class of
travel. Inflight service and food very good (as good as BA), bar service superb.
ZOOM AIRLINES review : 15 August 2008 : by S Jones
|
Customer Rating : 4/5 | |
LGW-JFK Premium Economy. Flight on time leaving Gatwick, a little late arriving in JFK but, that was
because of problems at JFK. Ground staff at Gatwick and cabin crew attentive and pleasant. JFK-LGW,
Check-in efficient but lacking the manner of staff in Gatwick. Announcements re boarding were
incorrect and we were not well-informed of reason for late boarding. Flew premium but did not get
priority boarding and it was a bit chaotic at the gate. Staff very disinterested in their passengers
and could have been much more helpful and pleasant. Onboard a rather old ex-Air Finland 757, the
experience improved and cabin crew friendly and attentive. I preferred the seating of the 767 on the
way out as it was a better, more up-to date aeroplane. The food was fine.
ZOOM AIRLINES review : 14 August 2008 : by S Medcraft
|
Customer Rating : 1/5 | |
Zoom will never have my custom again, I have just returned from New York to Gatwick. The outgoing
flight was delayed by two hours with the excuse there was a technical fault - the return flight was
a nightmare, 5 hours delayed with no information whatsoever at JFK. When we asked when the flight
was scheduled to depart we were met with 'No idea' - the only time we got any information was when
we were on board and the captain gave some excuse about a late inbound flight. Food was awful and
just one meal on a long haul flight - we should have had at least a snack for breakfast. The ground
staff at JFK was the worst I have ever come across one case was 4kg overweight but in total for 4
people we were underweight but told excess baggage pay up.
ZOOM AIRLINES review : 14 August 2008 : by Julie Rae
|
Customer Rating : 5/5 |  |
The only route currently direct between San Diego and London. Zoom reviews were poor regarding
delays, so pleasantly surprised as to how good this flight was. I flew premium economy and the
cabin was only around half full so four seats together to stretch out. The food was a higher
quality than I'm used to on flights, my experience with airline vegetarian food is that its pretty
uninspired. The crew were top rate - relaxed, good humoured and helpful. A wide range of
complimentary magazines and newspapers were offered.
ZOOM AIRLINES review : 13 August 2008 : by Annette Price
|
Customer Rating : 1/5 | |
Gatwick to Calgary 9th August. My 13 year old son flew out to Calgary as an unaccompanied young
person - It was his first flight alone and I was assured by Zoom staff that he would be accompanied
to the plane and accompanied at the other end to make sure he got to the right place to meet up with
his friends parents who were meeting him at the other end. My son was just left to fend for himself
when the plane finally landed at Calgary (3 hours late, after taking a detour to Toronto!) no one
even advised him where he was supposed to go when he got off the plane. I am just thankful he got to
where he needed to be eventually - no thanks to Zoom airlines. I dread to think what's going to
happen when the time comes for him to return.
ZOOM AIRLINES review : 13 August 2008 : by C Kinnaird
|
Customer Rating : 1/5 | |
Sitting at home waiting to find out if your Glasgow to Toronto flight will leave this evening at
22.00 - 11 hours behind schedule Inconvenience to our family, 3 children tired and disappointed, a
full on argument with better half for me trusting a budget airline to begin with, out of pocket
expenses so far £60 for cab fares to and from airport and £30 to pay for this evenings taxi fare
£3,673.59 for 5 flights premium economy hardly budget, 1 missed afternoon and evening with
relatives (the whole point of this short 5 day trip). If it doesn't go ahead 1 nights accomodation
in Toronto and the possibility of the remainder of our stay being cancelled by the hotel. So Mr
Hinkles when do you and your company start taking responsibility for these frequent delays? Buyer
beware!
ZOOM AIRLINES review : 13 August 2008 : by Steven Clark
|
Customer Rating : 4/5 | |
Gatwick to San Diego in Premium Economy. I travelled to San Diego on the Friday flight with my wife
and two teenage children for a 10 day flydrive break. I would estimate that our flight was around
90% full on the way out, with a mix of professional type persons, and holiday makers. The service in
premium economy was better than I remember, although the quality of the food was very much standard
airline fare. The purser made a point of speaking to both my wife and I and wanted to know what we
thought of the service, crew, and overall experience. The premium seats are comfortable without
being soothing, and legroom is adequate for an 11 hour flight. The inflight entertainment is still a
let down as Zoom don't appear to have any aircraft with seatback screens, so it was shown on the old
style communal screen. We arrived into San Diego around 10 minutes early, collected our bags,
cleared customs, and collected our hire car in the same time it takes to get your bags at LAX. Our
return flight was unfortunately delayed by 5 hours. We received an email from Zoom customer service
explaining that the delay was due to a technical problem and that check in would open in view of the
revised departure time. Generally my experience of Zoom's time keeping has been positive, so I was
interested to see how the Zoom check in agents handled it. Clearly not everyone had recieved or read
the email explaining the delay, as there were a few unhappy people checking in for the flight, as
well as others who obviously wanted compensation of some sort. Once onboard the crew made sure we
were comfortable, and we were treated to a spectacular view of the Grand Canyon as we flew over it.
We arrived back into Gatwick a little over 5.5 hours late. Overall I'm still impressed because Zoom
is a budget airline, with budget prices offering a level of service that you get when you fly other
more well known names. Zoom cabin crew are a credit to the airline, and all that is missing is seat-
back TV's and more punctual time keeping.
ZOOM AIRLINES review : 7 August 2008 : by Bob Jeffrey
|
Customer Rating : 1/5 | |
Don't fly Zoom if you're in a hurry. Flown with them twice now, first time delayed for 24 hours due
to Zoom aircraft in New York. Second time the aircraft was re-routed to a different airport to
"pick up more passengers". Making us an hour and a half late arriving at destination. Oh and they
weren't able to serve breakfast, no-one ever did figure out why not. You might notice that the only
way to give them feedback is to use their customer feedback web page which needs a login account.
It doesn't seem possible to get a username and password, so they live in ignorance.
ZOOM AIRLINES review : 3 August 2008 : by S Hukin
|
Customer Rating : 5/5 | |
Have just returned from a week in New York. Zoom Staff both on the ground and in the air were great.
I am 6ft 4 and had plenty of le room. There was probably more leg room on this flight then on a
Virgin Atlantic flight I took a few years back.
ZOOM AIRLINES review : 31 July 2008 : by Anne Watling
|
Customer Rating : 5/5 | |
We have just returned from Vancouver with Zoom and had the best flight ever. There was enough leg
room, food was excellent and service from the stewards was superb. I had had a back operation
fairly recently and received great care and concern with disabled access to the plane. Zoom will be
our first choice in future.
ZOOM AIRLINES review : 30 July 2008 : by Stephanie Steiner
|
Customer Rating : 1/5 | |
I wish the stars went into the negative numbers. Departed on the first San Diego/Gatwick flight,
June 20th 2008. The flight was delayed as there was not enough food on the flight for all of the
passengers. They ended up buying McDonald's Happy Meals for children on board and we finally took
off. Fortunately, we were able to make our connection in Gatwick to Edinburgh, despite being late
and having had our San Diego departure time changed twice from the time that we booked.
That, however, was easy compared to the return. We arrived at 1005am at Gatwick, 55 minutes prior
to departure. We were not allowed to board even though every email we had contained the warning
that we must be there 45 minutes in advance. They thoughtfully offered to charge us 300 GBP to
change to a Toronto flight and then get home from there. We paid to change, got our boarding passes
(with seats assigned), and then sat to wait. An hour before the Toronto flight, we hear our names
over the loudspeaker - yep, we get bumped. You mean they didn't tell you you would be stand-by?
Despite the fact that we have boarding passes with seat numbers, we are no longer flying home. 42
hours and $3000 later, we managed to return - thanks to American Airlines and Southwest. Zoom
customer service was despicable, to say the least. Their reply to our complaint was a form letter
that only addressed one of several points raised (not once did they address the 45 minute issue).
ZOOM AIRLINES review : 25 July 2008 : by R Taylor
|
Customer Rating : 4/5 | |
Gatwick to Vancouver return. We were in premium economy, more leg room than I had before. The
attendants were helpful, food was nice and a relaxing journey. The flight date was changed once on
us before we flew but we were given plenty of notice so this was no problem.
ZOOM AIRLINES review : 23 July 2008 : by Christian Brosstad
|
Customer Rating : 1/5 | |
This summer we have had some really bad experiences with Zoom Airlines flight from New York. We have
tried to send a complaint to Zoom Airlines, but it's really hard. They are really making it almost
impossible to give feedback - maybe it's a reason for that. It' can be hard sometimes to face your
customers opinions. This is from their website: “Zoom is committed to caring for our customers from
the time of booking through take-off to landing and beyond”. In real world this seems to be just
empty words. We have tried to send a complaint to Zoom – even sent it to their managing director
Jonathan Hinkles. Their customer service seems to be just a black hole.
On our way to New York we had upgraded and were very happy with the service. When you pay for an
upgrade you are basically paying for more space and sleeping comfort. On our way back to London we
upgraded again and expected the same service. This was not the case. Yes, we got more space for
legs, but upon boarding we realized that our seats didn’t recline due to the emergency exit
restrictions. We told the staff twice about this, but they didn’t do anything about it. People in
the economy section had this feature. We paid more and didn’t get that. Where is the logic in that?
The main concern was that we were not informed by the ground staff and the failure to react from the
air crew. If we had been informed, we would not have spent 300 US dollars for an upgrade. We didn’t
get what we paid for. Another serious problem with Zooms aircraft is the toilet facilities. Both our
flights with Zoom Airlines had very poor sanitary conditions. The toilets were blocked by paper and
waste. Eight hours is a long flight with conditions like that. Our concern with this was that the
staff didn’t clean or unblock the toilets upon being informed. How is the staff trained to deal with
this? Maybe you can't expect much from a budget airline, but if they really mean what they write on
their website - they should at least answer their customers. Agree?
ZOOM AIRLINES review : 22 July 2008 : by Ian Cave
|
Customer Rating : 1/5 | |
Due to concerns over comment authenticity, this has been withdrawn.
ZOOM AIRLINES review : 17 July 2008 : by Peter Carter
|
Customer Rating : 5/5 | |
Vancouver - Cancun. Great food, plenty of leg room, two films, free headsets and a charming and
helpful crew. It probably matched some of my best flights anywhere. The return trip also had a delay
in Cancun, partly due to the late arrival of the plane from Belfast combined with an interesting
saga of a passenger from the inbound plane being arrested for deeds committed in Canada. Again this
aspect was not Zooms fault but to make amends we all were given free wine with our meals. I will
book my next YVR-UK trip on Zoom.
ZOOM AIRLINES review : 15 July 2008 : by Jennifer Palmer
|
Customer Rating : 1/5 | |
Booked in April for Gatwick to Toronto return - by chance found out a month later that flight was
coming back a day later - couldnt do that date and had to cancel return flight losing me £100 on my
return flight to Glasgow with BA as a result. Then was informed 10 days before I was due to fly that
flight would be via Montreal - adding another 2 hours onto our journey. Arrive at Gatwick to find
that instead of flying at 2pm it would be 04.35am - was told that evening it would be 06.55am only
to be told at 05.00am that morning that flight was cancelled. Decided to give up and head to
Heathrow and pay £1400 with BA for two seats to Toronto. During this whole time Zoom staff had
seemed to disappear - even the staff at hotel were being more helpful.
ZOOM AIRLINES review : 12 July 2008 : by E Hudson
|
Customer Rating : 1/5 | |
I had the worst experience in my life over the weekend. We had a 31 hour delay. The staff
literally took off on us without an explanation, never provided us with food or beverages and lied
to us on multiple occasions. I would spend the extra $200 and fly with a reliable company that will
ensure you a safe flight. Zoom only has 5 planes, so if they can't get you out of the city, because
of mechanical problems, then you are really stuck and unfortunately they promise you that they will
take off soon, but it never seems to happen. Additionally their customer service representatives
are based in Scotland and are conveniently unavailable or useless. Customers are treated as a joke
and not taken seriously. Any problem that you may encounter will definitely not be resolved by them.
You are literally left in the dark. Check their arrival times on their website and you are
guaranteed to find at least one delayed flight by 8 hours (that is minimum). Trinidad flight was
delayed by 36 hours, Spanish flight by 9 hours etc. Do you really want to suffer?
ZOOM AIRLINES review : 12 July 2008 : by S Rodger
|
Customer Rating : 1/5 | |
Toronto to Glasgow Premium upgrade. Flight and crew were excellent, except the seats are narrow. The
return flight however was a different story. Were suppose to depart at 1100 - upon checking flights
on the television it showed the flight as being cancelled. Upon checking the Zoom website it showed
the flight as being a temporary schedule change. I tried to call the Zoom # in the UK and got an
automated recording telling me to check their website, not very helpful when your looking for an
explanation. We had paid for premium upgrade and prebooked a window and center seat on a plane which
was suppose to be a 757. It turned out to be a 767 and were given seats in the center section.
Flight was cold and when we asked for blankets which were supposed to be included in the upgrade we
were told they had all been handed out. I didn't see them hand any out. As for the meal which was
served at 600 am which I expected to be breakfast, turned out to be either pasta or chicken, not
what I usually would eat for breakfast. Lastly for a flight that was supposed to come Toronto to
Glasgow direct, this one came in from London half full. I found this rather odd. This is our second
time flying with Zoom and with an 18 hour delay on departure this time and an 8 hour departure delay
last time, I think this will be our last time flying with Zoom.
ZOOM AIRLINES review : 12 July 2008 : by Laura Singleton
|
Customer Rating : 1/5 | |
Awful. Would advise anyone against travelling with Zoom. Delayed by 22 hours from Toronto to
Gatwick. We had to get back to the UK for work on the Monday as boyfriend had started new job (the
delay meant we would have arrived at Gatwick at 7am on the Monday). They sent us via Glasgow
instead, took at least 12 hours longer to get home, cost us over £200 for the tickets and they won't
refund us. Customer relations telephone number on internet is a fax machine, after several emails
complaining they offered me £50 off my next flight with Zoom, no refund for the train tickets! I see
their is a statement from the managing director of Zoom concerning Fuel prices on this website.
Schedules have been changed to save Zoom costs, however I have been left with a £200+ bill - Fair?
ZOOM AIRLINES review : 5 July 2008 : by D Stoff
|
Customer Rating : 1/5 | |
Due to concerns over comment authenticity, this has been withdrawn.
ZOOM AIRLINES review : 5 July 2008 : by J Davidson
|
Customer Rating : 4/5 | |
Glasgow-Ottawa return. Check in efficient and friendly, flights were on time with special diet
meals as requested. Cheerful flight attendants and comfortable seats in economy class. Altogether a
very good experience and we'll certainly fly Zoom again.
ZOOM AIRLINES review : 3 July 2008 : by C Schoen
|
Customer Rating : 4/5 | |
Vancouver to Gatwick return. We did not experience any delays or cancellations. The food, drink
and entertainment were reasonable, and we were able to spread ourselves out to unused seats. The
crew were great. The only complaint was our efforts to call Zoom by telephone, as all the lines only
directed us to the website and computer access was awkward.
ZOOM AIRLINES review : 30 June 2008 : by F Compton
|
Customer Rating : 4/5 | |
Excellent service - Ottawa to Glasgow return. Flights were on time, service was friendly and
efficient and food was the best we've experienced on a flight in years.
4TH JUNE 2008
- PERSONAL STATEMENT BY : Mr Jonathan Hinkles - Managing Director, Zoom Airlines
"Firstly, I'd like to offer my sincere apologies to those customers whose travel plans have been affected by recent changes to Zoom's flight
schedule. We have recently made a number of changes affecting a total of five flights per week from Gatwick to Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal
and New York services over the course of the summer season. Other routes are operating as scheduled. These changes are solely in
response to the unprecedented increase in fuel prices, which has seen oil more than double in price in the last few months. We note that a
number of other airlines have made similar moves, including American completely withdrawing its services from Stansted from July and Delta
withdrawing its Gatwick-New York flights from September. Whilst I recognise that it will come as little consolation to the customers
affected, the need to make changes to advance flight schedules to respond to fuel prices is by no means unique to Zoom. Our
reservations team are making every effort to offer suitable alternative flights to those customers booked on these five particular flights but
if the available travel days offered are unacceptable then we will offer a full refund of all monies paid. Once again, I apologise to those
customers whose plans have been disrupted and offer my assurances that my team and I will do our very best to assist with your travel
arrangements. I can only ask for your understanding that the current fuel price situation is extraordinary and one which is affecting every airline."
|
Earlier comments have been archived (ie. prior to the date of
last comment above).
|
|
|
|
If you experience any problems submitting comments on the above link, please use our general Feedback Page |
|
|
|
