CSA Czech Airlines

IST to BCN via Prague return in Business Class. Outbound from Istanbul to Prague was good service on A320 with easy connection in Prague to Barcelona on A320 - good service with average business class seating. On the return segment we checked in for the flight and assigned seats 2a and c. When we boarded the aircraft we realized they had a change of aircraft to an A321. Problem with this plane is that it is only a charter aircraft with no business class. Small seat no legroom and I paid extra for this. The connection in Prague was to a B737-400 which was very old and badly in need of a new interior. Crew was nice but again cabin comfort horrible for a business class. As a Platinum member with Delta I was shocked to find that my miles did not credit to my account. When I contacted Delta they said to contact Czech Airlines. When I contact Czech Airlines I spoke with a very combative person on the phone who said this was a Delta problem and they could do nothing. A bad experience and had other issues with Czech with the overall service and the extremely rude 3rd party staff they have contracted in Barcelona.

Amsterdam - Kyiv via Prague return. On the return our flight out of Kyiv was delayed by about 40 minutes resulting in a connecting time of only 15 min in Prague. Still I made the flight as the plane waited a few extra minutes for us connecting passengers. Also my luggage was on the same plane! Impressive. Otherwise standard service: sandwich and non-alcoholic drinks for free pleasant planes. Will fly them again.

TXL-JFK via Prague return. I have flown often with Czech in Europe which is a decent experience and thought I would try them transatlantic. Terrible idea. Worst business class I have ever experienced. The seats are worse than premium economy on BA or SAS - uncomfortable poor pitch poor recline etc. The entertainment system consisted of an ipod with four films loaded on - the volume on the headphones was too low to hear anything. I tried three different ipods on the two transatlantic flights with no luck. Other than that the decor is tired toilets not kept clean during the flight. The only positive is that the crew are polite but for this one doesn't pay business class fares.

Helsinki - Prague one way. Aircraft modern and clean. Enough legroom flight was about 2/3 full so there were plenty of empty seats. FAs professional and polite. One sandwich and a glass of juice was for free.

RIX-PRG-JFK and back. Riga to Prague and back ok. Aircraft comfy staff friendly. But planes to New York are with very poor entertainment system. Expected good entertainment system thought will watch movies or listen to music in the plane. But there was nothing to listen to just few channels of music and nothing acceptable. No TV sets for every passenger. They showed old movies and stupid "funny" short movies. The flight was long as well - about 9 hours.It wasn't night flight so I also didn't want to sleep that much. This airline company is ok if you fly in Europe but they should think more about entertainment system for flights across the ocean.

LHR-PRG-LHR Economy. Flight on time plane not full so good seating choices. Checked in online and worked well. FA's friendly and attentive snacks served followed by items to be bought - paid for wine but no problem. Quick exit at Prague airport. Return flight plane also not full and FA's friendly. Food served and items sold. At Prague you can upgrade to Business (if you have the right class ticket).

CGN-PRG-IST. CGN-PRG aged and not well kept ATR 42. When weighting the hand luggage the CSA employees claimed that the allowed baggage was 8 kilos not 12 as stated at their website. Some passengers were already sorting out some of the luggage. Later the women checked the flight details again and admitted that the hand baggage is 12 kg. Cabin crew did not speak German and only poor english although most passengers were non-czech. Only a small sandwich was handed out unfortunately the cabin crew did not know whether the meat included pork or not - the vast majority of the passengers were Turkish so almost no one could eat the sandwich (no vegetarian alternative provided). Prague airport was nice and the three hours of waiting were enjoyable. An old Boeing used for the flight to Turkey. Seats were not clean. This time a bigger sandwich provided including one free drink. I felt like flying with a low cost carrier.

Our direct flight Toronto - Prague was cancelled however the web site said it was on time about 3 hours before the planned departure - we live 15 min. from the airport (the plane never left Prague so they knew for at least 8 hours). We were offered to fly direct 2 days later or be put on any available non-direct flight. We were not informed at the time and only found out later that we had to wait for 8 hours in Amsterdam for the connecting flight to Prague. No food/drink vouchers were offered. In Amsterdam we tried to book earlier flight but were told that it could not be done for security reason because our luggage was already booked to Prague (there was much earlier flight to Prague - at 9 am we landed at 7 am and had to wait until almost 3 pm!). We had a similar experience with a different airline last year (10 hours delay) and we received EU 40 in food vouchers and Can$ 150 for future travel each. We will avoid flying with CSA in the future.

BUD-PRG-MAD return. Had good experience with them ground crew screwed up in BUD so we were late by about 1hr CSA held back all the planes that had connecting pax from BUD. Very nice of them (though I'm sure others were annoyed by delay)! BUD-PRG in an ATR42 was good for an experience PRG-MAD both ways in a clean A320 with one of the best inflight meals I've ever had. PRG-BUD served by Malev. CSA had a great price for the money at the time I bought the ticket.

MAN-PRG. Generally a pleasant flight almost full in an ageing but clean Boeing 737. Good information from cockpit in both English and Czech. Cabin crew are good but looked fed up. Catering has gone downhill since my last CSA flight and the sandwich was stale. Flight was 5 minutes late but bags were on the belt very quickly.