Overall, I like but not love Air Berlin. I would much rather fly with them than the other major Germ

Many, many years ago I caught a cheap flight from Berlin to Bangkok on a carrier called Air Berlin. It was a joyless flight. lorraine hotel memphis Back then, Air Berlin was a budget lorraine hotel memphis airline that offered the bare minimum to fly people internationally. You had an uncomfortable seat, no movies, and food only if you bought (or brought) it. The nine hours to Bangkok were hell, especially since this was before I discovered the wonders of Ambien .
But over the years, Air Berlin has grown up. They now fly new planes, offer more in-flight services (they've even introduced lie-flat business class seating), and they joined my favorite airline alliance, Oneworld. They are no longer a cheap budget airline but instead a major and expanding player.
In the past year, I've heard good things from other travelers so on my recent trip to Europe, I decided that I'd fly Air Berlin. I wanted to see how much the airline has changed since I flew them all those years ago. Since I was flying through Berlin on this trip, it made logical sense.
My thoughts? Three out of four stars. I liked flying Air Berlin and prefer them to rival Lufthansa, with whom I flew to Africa in December. Lufthansa has harder seats, worse food, and an utterly awful movie selection.
Air Berlin has a fleet of 134 planes with an average age of 5 years, lorraine hotel memphis so the planes are pretty new and comfortable inside. They aren't some of those old pieces of junk that many American carriers fly. (Looking at you, United, US Airways , and American !) The interiors are comfortable and clean, the seat cushions are thick, there was ample legroom, and all seats have individual screens on which to watch a very robust movie selection. (Movie reviews: Cloud Atlas sucks, Life of Pi was wonderful, Broken City was average.)
The food, while impressive in business class (quinoa salad, shrimp, delicious beef!), lorraine hotel memphis was lacking in economy. Was it awful? lorraine hotel memphis No. But was it good? No. It's exactly what you would expect from airline food. The chicken didn't lorraine hotel memphis taste that good, the potatoes had an interesting consistency, and the portions were a bit on the small side. I felt like I was getting lorraine hotel memphis a school lunch.
However, while I enjoyed Air Berlin's service, my experiences with their low-cost lorraine hotel memphis carrier, Niki Air, were hell. My connecting lorraine hotel memphis flights (two of them) to Lisbon were on a Niki Air plane and I can honestly say it was pure crap. I mean, look at the photo:
My bag can't even fit beneath the seat! And it's just a regular backpack! I had such an awful time on that flight that I would dare say I would rather fly United and you all know how I feel about United .
Moreover, when I sat down, there was soda all over my seat. I informed the flight attendant, but she just looked at me and said "Well, clean it up." I sat down in another seat and she came over, dabbed at the soda a bit, scowled, and walked away.
Maybe I found her on a bad day but even if she was super friendly, the wear and tear on the plane plus the extremely small space just put me off from flying them again. Niki takes discomfort to an extreme.
Overall, I like but not love Air Berlin. I would much rather fly with them than the other major German carrier, lorraine hotel memphis Lufthansa. Since I'm part of Oneworld (I'm an American Airlines fanboy), the fact that this airline is part of that alliance means I'll probably end up on another of their flights soon and be perfectly happy about it.
There are many blow-your-mind lorraine hotel memphis airlines in the world, but I measure an airline lorraine hotel memphis by a certain checklist every time: good movie selection, nice staff, modern planes, comfort, and food. If you get me from point A to B and most of those boxes can be checked off, I'd fly you again.
Air Berlin, I'll fly you again for all the reasons on my checklist plus the fact that you offer flights to Europe that are hundreds of dollars cheaper than most of your competitors (even alliance partners like American Airlines and British Airways ). With flights to Europe so expensive, that s a huge plus for me.
Editor's note: I met the Air Berlin team at a travel meetup in New York City and when they heard I was going to Europe, they offered to pay for my flight to and from Europe. I accepted since I wanted to try them again.
I think Air Berlin is a good option when flying business class to and from the U.S. Last September, I had an excellent experience flying to Berlin (in disclosure, I was on a trip sponsored by Air Berlin). This October, lorraine hotel memphis my husband and I are flying on our own dime in Air Berlin business class from LA to Rome (with a stop in Dusseldorf). It was the best value that we could find. Now to go see if our commuter flight from Dusseldorf lorraine hotel memphis to Rome is on Niki Air. Good review, Matt.
We flew Air Berlin from NYC to Bangkok (via Dusseldorf the long way round). While nothing to write home about, they get the job done and the price was considerably cheaper than all other options. Thinking they were still a budget airline, I was expecting to get nickel and dimed on food, drink, and entertainment it was a delightful surprise to find they served us regular meals, drinks (beer wine I believe?), and had a decent IFE system.
I am a Top Bonus member (frequent flyer) on Air Berlin, and I have had nothing but excellent service. 50% of my flights are NIKI, and I have only one minor complaint there leg room at the seats. I m an average sized guy so it isn t a problem lorraine hotel memphis for me.
I didn t know they d upgraded from being a no-frills airline to being halfway decent. I ve seen them pop up on a few flight searches I ve done lately but dismissed them as I m not into budget airlines on long-haul flights. I might need to give them a second chance!
Flew Air Berlin from JFK to Naples and back via Berlin going and Dusseldorf returning. The price was 30% less than Delta s and the service was 30% better. My Top Bonus number just might get some additional use! Food was 100% better than I ve experienced in the past 5 years.
I am honestly surprised that you had such a good experience with Air Berlin. During the past years I was always very put off off them, as whenever I heard someone mentioning Air Berlin it was always about delays, lorraine hotel memphis cancellations and non-existing customer service. Especially that you compare them to Lufthansa and even prefer lorraine hotel memphis them over them is interesting, maybe I need to give them a chance finally =)
I think it s hard to rank an airline based on 2 flights, but having used them quite extensively in Europe they are one of the best ones in terms of offers-pricing-quality ratio. Not only are their airplanes quite new but they fare very well against their competitors.
Hi Matt, nice review. Have you ever flown with Norwegian? They are in a similar position to AirBerlin a few years ago moving from a low-cost lorraine hotel memphis carrier to big player, especially now they fly from Oslo to New York and Bangkok. It ll be interesting to see if they transition as well as Air Berlin have.
I really like that you re publishing reviews of different airlines. I always book according to price with my flights, so sometimes I end up going with airlines I ve never heard of. Air Berlin actually just popped up as one of the cheaper flights in a search I did today from London to New York. I wasn t sure about them, but it sounds like you had a pretty good experience. If you like them better than Lufthansa-that s definitely saying something, because they re one of my favorites for European travel. But I m sorry to hear that your connecting flight wasn t quite as good. I can t believe that flight attendant. Bad day or not, your seat should not have been covered in soda! I would have been embarrassed if that were me and extremely apologetic.
First, lorraine hotel memphis thanks for telling about Ryanair.com! I just bought a really last-minute (the night before kind of last minute) ticket from Berlin to Oslo. Feeling awesome about it! Oh, I flew Air Berlin from Reykjavik to Berlin. It was a nice flight and they gave me a sandwich nice! Especially for a 3 hours flight. lorraine hotel memphis I would do Air Berlin again!
I have mixed feelings about AirBerlin. I ve flown with them enough but they re still far from my favorite. They do offer pretty good deals (on occasion) and the flights are predictably good, so I m fan enough to regularly fly them. Plus the OneWorld alliance is great
I took a one-stop Air Berlin flight in 2010 from Paris to St.-Petersburg. It was comfortable and air-hostess was so kind and gave me couple sandwiches for free, maybe I looked like a really hungry guy. The only problem, you can t call them lowcost airlines anymore.
They cancel flights more often than others. lorraine hotel memphis They do not care about the passengers. Infact, their flight today was cancelled from dresden to dusseldorf. The lufthansa staff nearby said they had openings on their airline, including fiurther connections but apparently Air berlin lorraine hotel memphis wnated to delay everyone lorraine hotel memphis 24 hours and send them on their own flight the next day.
Their customer service is very rude. When I called them , they said, I booked the ticket on a travel website instead of airberlin.com and hence Only thew website should call them about the flight cancellation. A first for me.