Alexandair (the airline that Olympic Holidays is using) is a sub-standard aircraft/airline. There are numerous points that I wish to raise and complain about regarding the airline.
1. The size of the aircraft was unsuitable for the length of the flight. This airline is obviously used for internal flights within Greece.
2. The staff did not speak English very well and it was difficult to understand them when they where giving the safety instructions and general information regarding the flight.
3. The meals that where provided by the airline where absolutely disgusting. I could not eat either of them. The meal on the outward flight consisted of about a tablespoon of rice and peas (mainly peas), two faggots and a stale bun with no butter. That was it, no dessert or drink. The return journey meal consisted of a rubber sausage, rubber egg and two mushrooms and again a stale bun with no butter. I could not eat either of these two meals. We had paid extra for these meals and to be quite honest I wouldn’t have given them to a dog.
4. There was no drinks trolley on the plane. You had a choice of warm water or Coca-Cola. The drinks were not in a bottle or can, the staff on the aircraft poured you a drink from a two litre bottle into a plastic cup. On the outbound journey the boiler was broken so no hot drinks were available. On the return journey the choice of drinks was again water, Coca-Cola and orange juice which was quite aptly named ‘Pea’.
5. There was no inflight entertainment, there was no television or radio and on a flight with a duration of three and a half hours this was unacceptable.
6. On the return journey half way through the flight the pilot informed us that 75 pieces of luggage had been left behind in Zante. One of our suitcases was one of those left behind.
7. On the return journey seats where not allocated to passengers which resulted in a free for all when getting a seat. On a flight that has no inflight entertainment the seats should be allocated.
8. The plane in general was below an even poor standard and it was totally inadequate and basic. Wen landing there was water running down the centre of the plane. The only good thing that I could say about the plane is that it landed.
If this is the standard of aircraft that Olympic Holidays think is acceptable and expect their customers to endure then I will not be booking with Olympic Holidays again and I would not recommend Olympic to family and friends.
The staff have been dimissive of our complaint and told us to take it up with Alexandair. We booked through Olympic Holidays therefore our complaint is with them.
as you are not complaining about your accomodation in resort etc. if you wish to complain to olympic for using this airline then do so, however if you are wanting to get compensation etc from this holiday then it would be the airline ultimatly that would make that descision. may be wrong but know that in the past if it is not an airline that is owned by the operator then they are reluctent to get involved.
sorry i cant really help
yes muzzy is correct. olympic did all they were contracted to do. its alexanderair you need to complain too.
I personally agree that the tour operator should be responsible, (in our case Sunstar Leisure) as they booked Alexandair as part of the package they offered.
I also agree wholeheartedly at the comments made about Alexandair and feel that they should not be able to operate such an inferior service at all!!
Please See http://www.holidaytruths.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=47937
*Edit to fix link - Glynis*
Like you we felt the aircraft was poor and grubby , the staff were very poor english speakers (an indeed read the safety instructions off a card in pidgeon english with some very interesting pronunciations!) and spend much of their time in the loo re-applying their face cement! Similarly we had no in-flight drinks and problems over seat allocation.
We are wise to their lack of entertainment / lack of vegtarian food option and sub standard food so will be taking a packed lunch , lots of books and a MP3 player! Am also tempted to take a stash of mini bottles of booze to help while away the time !
This seems to be the way things are going with budget airlines & I would much rather pay extra for a better service than minimal fares for this shower!
Since 20 August 2005, the aircraft is grounded, from Greek aviation authorities, for severe technical problems. All flights postponed. Unknown if and when they will be fixed. All Greek tv stations report the aircraft as "a disaster waiting to happen", following the disaster of Helios airlines
Ah. Was that the one I saw on the ground at Heraklion airport on 15 August undergoing 'maintenance'?
I was on the same flight as Elaine25 and I agree with everything she has said. What I would like to know is, how did a tin pot company like Alexandair ever get in business?? They are the worst airline (if that's what you can call them - Fred Flintstone was more is more advanced than this lot) that I have ever flown with. The plane was dirty, and I mean aboslutely filthy!! The staff spoke extremely poor english and were very rude indeed. The food, well what can I say about that, it was absolutely disgusting. It is Olympics fault as they choose the airline companies, and get this, Helios (the one that crasehd in Cyprus) is one of them. If they cannot do their research properly and choose well known airlines instead of cheap, nasty budget airlines, then I'm afraid that they do not deserve to be in business and take money off people who work damned hard all year round to save up for their holiday. I am absolutely disgusted with the shoddy service that we have received and I will not be letting this drop. They just churn out pre printed standard letters saying, we are sorry and can only apologise etc etc, well anybody can type those words can't they?? As far as I'm concerned, the 38 years of excellence that Olympic claim to have is the biggest laughable logo I have ever seen. Watch this space!!! Oh, just another little point, did anybody see the sun newspaper the other day, where the passnegers on the Alexandair flight were asked to move to the back of the plane for take off to help balance it out, surely they shouldn't have even been flying should they???
Aircraft were grounded for one day only while checks were made and it is now back flying again.
If you have booked your holiday with Olympic it is them you complain to. That is who your contract is with, you have no business with Alexandair this is the airline Olympic have choosen to charter. Greenshoes is wrong in stating that Olympic have done all they are contracted to. As a client you did not chosse Alexandair, you made no payment to the.
Kind Regards
Stewart
Believe me, Olympic have already had one letter of complaint, but as their reposnse was toatlly unacceptable then I can assure you that they will be getting another one shortly.
As I say, I don't know if this is the reason why these particular passengers were asked to move but the fact that one might be asked to move to ensure that the plane is as evenly balanced as possible is not as bizarre as it might at first seem to some and indeed is a sign that the airline takes safety very seriously and is doing everything possible to ensure that the plane handles as it should rather than being a sign that the plane is unsafe and shouldn't be flying at all.
SM
This is a warning for anyone that has booked with Olympic Holidays for this summer. Expect a below poor standard aircraft with no entertainment, disgusting food, Greek speaking staff etc.
Go girl!!!! (Elaine25), with you all the way on this one!!!!
The Olympic rep. was poor, giving very little acknowledgement / feedback to any enquiries which we made. Any information we did get was very limited. A full days cruise was booked, but was cancelled at very late notice.
We were accomodated at the Avra 1, in Alykes, Zakynthos. The room we were originally allocated (room 1) was very poorly lit, i.e. we could not dry anything. The toilet floor was swimming in what we thought was water from a leaky toilet - but, it wasn't water, it was definitely pee !
We complained to the rep. after our first night, and she said that hopefully we would be moved. We were finally moved after 3 nights, into a better room on the second floor, which had a good double-sided balcony and a "dry" toilet floor. The bath / shower was very weird, being about the size of a large sink, and on 2 levels.
The bar attendant at the Avra was a very miserable sort, and we think that there was some sort of conflict between her and our "rep".
We flew by Alexandair, but never again. OK, they were virtually on time setting off, but it would be worth waiting another 20 minutes or so, if you were going to make sure all luggage was loaded. On our return journey, we got on board the plane, and as we were about to take-off, the captain came on the speaker system and said "we have bad news and good news. The bad news is that not all luggage had been loaded, and the good news is that there are another 2 flights into Manchester from Zakynthos today" Well, can you imagine ?
When we arrived at Manchester, our cases, along with another 111 pieces of luggage, out of a total of 280 passengers did not arrive. Forms were filled in, and we expected the luggage to be delivered to our home address within the next 24 - 48 hours. Unfortunately it was NINE days before our luggage was delivered !
The flights both outgoing and incoming were very basic, the food was awful, and the drinks on board were very expensive. There was no in-flight entertainment, no booklet to advise price of drinks etc. no Duty Free goods. It would be expected that these things would be included on a 3½ hour flight.
There was no Olympic rep. available at Manchester to advise what had happened to our luggage.
I wish to advise any customers not to use Olympic Travel, as me & my partner returned from Zante without our suitcases. The Airline Olympic Sub-contact to is 'ALEXANDAIR' is like Fred Flintstone Airlines. We were informed that our suitcases were not put on the flight and we would receive our cases back with 48 hours. This has not happened. We were told that the Airline has 28 days to try and find our luggage and only then will they provide us with a' PROPERT IRREGULARITY REPORT' this has not happened either. The Airline are based in Athens and my recent conversation with Olympic want us to contact the Airline direct. This is just plan stupid, as Olympic has chosen to sub-contract to this tin pot Airline, and we have tried for the last five weeks to resolve this situation. I have received complaint correspondence from ABTA, who has basically told us that it is up to Olympic to liaise with us; however we have received a response letter from them asking us not to contact them. I would like any readers of the website to give me any advice they can as we can not proceed with any insurance claims until we have received the 'PROPERTY IRREGULARITY REPORT'.
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