Anyone who booked early to fly from Manchester to Rhodes on XLA276 and returning on XLA277 (wednesday flights) via the website when the flight times were shown as 0800 out of Manchester and 1530 return on your confirmation email. Make sure you check tickets when they arrive as the flight times have been changed to 1040 depart and 1800 return. We were not officially informed and only found this out by chance and had to contact Excel for confirmation. It is not a problem for us but may affect people who are booking or have booked transport to and from airports prior to their tickets arriving

My parents flew Excel yesterday afternoon from Gatwick to Fueterventura. They asked about upgrading to extra leg room seats at check in and to their suprise were done so free of charge!! The flight was 15 minutes late getting out but that was due to a group watching the footie (departure 1545) The flight was most enjoyable and really comfy. Fingers crossed return will be the same

flew with excel last year from Manchester to Fuerteventura XLA 204/205v.
What can i say... absolutely fantastic flight both out and inbound. Great inflight service, IFA and leather seats!! Paid extra for extra-legroom and as we were on a 737-800, these seats are positioned abover the wing.
Both flights departed on time. Had to make a call to excel prior to inbound flight to to confim the flight.
Absolutely no problems and would reccommend excel to everybody
Hope this helps to anybody worried about flying with excel airways

Have flown with Excel a total of four times now, all to Turkey.

Very professional. Would always recommend them. Great value for money.

Another negative experience I'm afraid - our flight from Gatwick to Alicante was scheduled for 6am departure but was delayed for four hours and a substitute plane from Air Italy used ('rather than wait for the mechanical problems with the XL plane to be fixed'). Since we had left home at midnight and had four children including two little ones, it was a fraught experience.
The XL staff at Gatwick were very curt and dismissive, but did give us some food vouchers (£4 each). Staff on the plane were friendly and helpful.
The Air Italy plane was old and awful - every time the wing flaps moved there was a terrible grinding and squeaking noise and being a nervous flyer, it didn't do much for me.
The landing was terrible. The return flight was on time and in a nice newish plane, but the landing was still one of the worst I've experienced - it felt like they came in to high and too fast. I thought it was just me, but having read other comments to that effect, maybe it's not!
Not sure if I'd use them again or not, mainly because I'm very nervous.

XL were supposed to take out the remaining balance of our flight on/before 10 June and according to online banking it's not been done - anyone else had this problem?

Going to ring them today but would be grateful if anyone could tell me if they've had a similar problem?

Ta, Tis

Hi

I've flown with XL a few times and don't remember THEM actually taking money themselves ?

... I think you have to ring up and make the transaction with them.. they will send you a reminder if you haven't......but I could be wrong
ooohhhh look........... we're twins !!!!!!!

My booking confirmation states specifically "The balance will be debited from your card on ......" so I think it is reasonable to assume that XL will just debit the money. It's only the 13th though so I wouldn't worry too much tisonlymoi, I'm sure a call to them will reveal all.

Another negative experience I'm afraid

No disrespect for yourself, or any other posters, but sometimes I think it can be very easy to jump ion the bandwagon of "Excel are awful"

Four hours, while inconvinient is not a massive delay. The Excel aircraft had techinical problems and Excel charetred in an aircraft to operate your flight. In the meantime they gave you refreshment vouchers. Chartering in an aircraft for 200+ passengers at little, or no notice at all is very hard, to have that arranged and gone in four hours is very good going. What more would you have liked?

The landing was terrible. The return flight was on time and in a nice newish plane, but the landing was still one of the worst I've experienced - it felt like they came in to high and too fast. I thought it was just me, but having read other comments to that effect, maybe it's not!

While I appreciate being a nervous flyer cannot be pleasent, I wonder how qualified users of this board are to make statements like that. Excel are a British registered airline who's Pilots have to have licenses up to the CAA standard, and are tested on this once a year. Not all landings can be perfect there are many different factors affecting aircraft landings.

I'm, sorry to pick apart your post, its not a personal dig at you, just demonstrating that Excel may not be as bad as the picture painted here.

I would be the first to agree that Excel are not the most reliable of charter airlines, but a 4 hour delay isn't that big a deal, you are just as likely to have this with any other charter airline. Excel provided refreshment vouchers, and undoubtedly worked very hard behind the scenes to get that Air Italy plane in. yet they still get a scathing report...

Excel airways are not that good at all i went on holiday to corfu last year with them and when we was due to come back home they had cancalled our flight and made another flight alot earlier then it was and left about 200 passangers behind stranded in corfu airport till 8pm the following morning but the thing is the people that was working at gatwick the day we flew out to corfu know that the flight coming back to the uk had already been changed and no one had told us! We spent the night in corfu airport and the day as well!

Charlieluv -

You will find that the small print on your ticket tells you to confirm your return flight - unfortunately most people do not read, it and some that do, ignore it.......

http://www.holidaytruths.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=75848

Well I rang them and they HADN'T taken the money - they took my card details over the phone so it's all paid off. Rather glad I rang - what if they don't send out reminders and just cancel your booking if you haven't paid up on time? Could happen!

It said on the booking form they would take the money BY the 10th June so I naturally assumed that they would have collectedit by now but from what chap said it wasn't even in the system to make payment.

Just beware, we flew with Excel in August last year (2005) via Olympic. Flight was delayed 32 hours!! Would never fly with them again. Even the Manchester Evening News came down to photograph and take statements and we appeared in the afternoon copy. We were put up and fed by the Radisson hotel, where we were looked after extremely well by their staff. We found that this was a regular occurance for the hotel (especially with Excel). We were advised that the cost of food and rooms would be around £30k for our flights stay. Lack of information from Excel was a serious issue and the hotel were left to do most of the explaining. It appears that Excel do not have enough spare planes in case of problems so everybody suffers when a plane is grounded. Even the flight back caused problems as the earlier flight had been cancelled and Excel had to send a Jumbo to accomodate both flights. This meant the Jumbo was delayed by at least 8 hours for the people flying to Stanford (Florida).

I would advise anyone flying with Excel to check with Excel before leaving home!

Firstly - flight delays are a regular occurence and all hotels near airposts see alot of them. Certain airlines will have deals/relationships with certain hotels so staff there will naturally see more of their passengers.

Secondly people usually only comment on these type of sites when they have had a problem - the vast majority of passengers that have no problems what so ever don't come on here saying how good a certain company is.

If you want numbers, and the likelihood of your flight being delayed you need to look at overall numbers not anecdotal comments.

My flight out two years ago was delayed for 2-3 hours - but we were met at the airport entrance and told about a change of plane and flight number, checked in pleasently with very little queue time and were kept updated of expected departure times (via the screens) regularly. the flight crew on the new plane were very nice and apologetic - All in all the service was excellent and the short delay wasn't a problem.

Does anyone have a contact number for Excel Airways...There's isn't a number on their website as far as i can see...

I'm trying to cancel one of the flights we have booked as someone can't make it .. They've just taken full payment on my CC for the person who can't make it as well...

Getting rather peedoff with them at the mo as they don't seem to be answering any of my e-mails..

Another negative experience I'm afraid - our flight from Gatwick to Alicante was scheduled for 6am departure but was delayed for four hours and a substitute plane from Air Italy used ('rather than wait for the mechanical problems with the XL plane to be fixed'). Since we had left home at midnight and had four children including two little ones, it was a fraught experience.
The XL staff at Gatwick were very curt and dismissive, but did give us some food vouchers (£4 each). Staff on the plane were friendly and helpful.
The Air Italy plane was old and awful - every time the wing flaps moved there was a terrible grinding and squeaking noise and being a nervous flyer, it didn't do much for me.
The landing was terrible. The return flight was on time and in a nice newish plane, but the landing was still one of the worst I've experienced - it felt like they came in to high and too fast. I thought it was just me, but having read other comments to that effect, maybe it's not!
Not sure if I'd use them again or not, mainly because I'm very nervous.

I've flown Excel before with no problems at all and am doing so again in October.

I have also flown Air Italy before when an Airtours flight to Orlando was delayed 8 hours due to a baggage handler crashing his lorry into the plane. I found Air Italy to be fantastic, much better than the Airtours plane we were due to fly on (we were on board when the collission ocurred) and the one we flew back on.

Hi MikeMills
The number you are looking for if you booked direct through XL.COM is 08701690169 it is only open 9-5 i think. i have always found it better to call Excel because as you pointed out they have not got the hang of answering email yet, but they are very helpful when you get through on the phone

If you book by phone can you still use the code?(for £15 discount)
thanks
Tina

Yes, I used the code by phone (my computer was playing up).