TUIfly

Berlin Tegel - Las Palmas return. Horrid airline both compared with other typical tourist "charter" airlines and other budget airlines like Easyjet or Germanwings. Tuifly is stuck somewhere in the middle just worse. Checked in online and printed our boarding passes at home only to find out that the "Fast bag drop" line at TXL was full of people who obviously hadn't done the online checkin. Upon asking one of the unfriendly staff members I was told that the bag drop counter "does not work as everything is drowning here in Tegel". How about sending passengers without a printed boarding pass to one of the other counters to make it work? Many others complained about that and started fights with the extremely unable staff members strangely the bag drop worked perfectly fine on the way back in Las Palmas. Had two hour delay on the outbound flight everybody was just waiting around in the terminal and no information was given as to the reasons for the delay no staff visible at the gates. Flight itself was uneventful plane ten years old but maintained poorly. Staff onboard arrogant and alcohol had to be paid. Arrived late in Las Palmas and had to wait for a further hour at the luggage belt for no reason again no staff around. Our transfer driver told us later that TUIfly is known for paying the least of all airlines hence their luggage will be offloaded last. He told us that he had left an hour late as he already knew we would be late. Same thing on the return more than an hour delay. Return aircraft was really dodgy an old 737-300 which looked as if it was about to fall apart any time. Interior worn toilets and seats not cleaned between flights. Also obviously no re-stocking since leaving Germany on the outbound to the Canaries almost all beverages were sold out. It's anyone's guess how maintenance procedures might look like at an airline that otherwise does everything it can so save a buck. Never again!

MAN-CGN-MAN with TuiFly this past week - could teach EasyJet and Ryanair a thing or two. Good value (130 Euros return) speedy friendly check-in seat pre-selection at no additional cost 20kg of checked bags at no additional cost. Spotless 737 with reasonably priced on-board catering. Decent seats with fair leg-room. Flight crew efficient and smiling. A breath of fresh-air after some of the snarling horrors I have encountered on other LCCs. At the moment they only serve MAN and NCL in the UK from a handful of German airports (Cologne-Bonn Stuttgart and Hannover) but there are some really interesting onward destinations (such as Tenerife for which I just forked out £400 for an EasyJet flight-from-hell).

SKG-MUC-SKG done this trip several times. Amenities not expected on LCC. All baggage was free. Sandwiches refreshment coffee chocolate newspaper magazines pillow blanket etc all free. Staff friendly. Punctual departures. Free seat-allocation on web check-in (1st row). Plane clean seat space adequate.

Booked TUIfly from Stuttgart to Berlin. At the gate I had to find out that my flight will be with a 25 year old 737-300 from Hola Airlines. Dirty and really poor interior which was as old as the plane itself. As far as I got to know TUIfly will be using two planes from Hola Airlines until November. I would not recommend flying with them.

Oporto-Koln. Excellent service friendly staff good organization. Seats a bit tight but excellent relation price-quality.

Dubrovnik to Munich. Great service for a budget airline! The plane was brand-new seats not too tight and good crew impression.

Tel Aviv to Berlin Tegel airport. Easy check-in friendly staff loads of leg room (we had normal seats not exit seats). Food was nothing to write home about but it was a night flight so didnt really care. Plane was clean. Would recommend and will be flying with them again. Great prices available.

HAJ-NCL and back 10 times in the past 3 months now and tuifly is worth the money. Its an excellent carrier. Fares are more than fair and service is excellent.

Tel-Aviv-Cologne. Service on this flight was good. Although the airline is a LCC we were served a free meal. The cabin was spacious and ample leg-room. Shame you have to pay extra for an emergency exit seat.

Cologne-Hamburg return Boeing 737-800 and 737-700. This airline is a LCC so no free drinks or food. For 45 minute leg this is fine. Both flights late by around 15 minutes. Seat reservation via online booking cost 9 Euro per leg. Booked seat 1C on both legs an no problem with check in. Crew friendly offered free newspaper and some magazines. The seats are narrow and legroom is limited. Ticket cost EURO 145 so not that bad.