A very pleasant first flight (Cyprus Airways)

Member Name: Toonie

Product:	Cyprus Airways
Date:	02/04/09 (151 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Friendly cabin crew

Disadvantages: Legroom and air quality on the A330 was poor

Cyprus Airways

Stansted-Paphos-Larnaca Airbus A320

As this was my first flight, I had heard plenty of horror stories from friends saying their ears always pop, they feel ill etc, etc. So, I armed myself with a bag of boiled sweets and some snacks and got ready for my flight to Larnaca. The aeroplane was clean, the seats were comfortable with plenty of legroom, even for someone who tends to have trouble going to the cinema. We were delayed by around half an hour before taking off.

The flight itself was quite pleasant and the food was certainly edible. I found the cabin crew to be polite and very helpful, always willing to bring you extra drinks and the like.

The in-flight entertainment was as you'd expect-a dodgy American film, but that did help to pass the hours.

On landing at Paphos there were problems with the baggage as it had not been correctly sorted at Stansted and so we were delayed yet again as the ground crew removed and replaced bags five times. This was not very well organised and during the forty minutes we were waiting the remaining passengers were not offered any drinks and were instructed to remain in their seats.

The journey on to Larnaca was fine and we were through Larnaca airport quickly.


Larnaca-Heathrow Airbus A330

Once again we were delayed at take off and the flight was only half full. There was slightly less leg room on the A330 and I was cramped even more as the seat in front of me had a black box under it, meaning I could not stretch my right leg.

The flight suffered from quite a lot of turbulence and we had quite a bumpy landing. My biggest complaint was the quality of air on a A330, quite often I and my partner felt ill from the lack of fresh air. We had not suffered this on the A320.

The cabin crew were once again very helpful, ready to bring drinks whenever asked and apologetic when the in-flight entertainment didn't work. They said it was a problem on the A330 that often happened. Luckily I had a book and an MP3 player. The food was fine (chicken and rice) but was served with a pasta salad, which made a strange combination.

Summary: A good quality airline with friendly staff, with whom I would certainly fly again.