Those Uncaring Airlines

A new guide rates and berates them

If airlines were hotels, most of them would be out of business. This familiar plaint of the frequent passenger was quantified last week with publication of a 1980 travel guide assembled by Egon Ronay, one of Britain's most acerbic critics of pretentious food and sloppy service. For the first time in its 22 years, Ronay's Lucas Guide (Penguin; $9.95) goes beyond its customary survey of British restaurants and inns to rate--and berate--14 Britain-to-North America carriers. Some of them may want to head for the nearest cloud.

While Delta ranks a surprising first and El Al a merited last (see box), few of the airlines land unscathed. In an introduction headed "Thoroughly Fed-Up," Ronay writes: "Herded like cattle, kept uninformed during frequent delays, racked in their tight seats, air travelers are reduced to ciphers and dehumanized." Hungarian-born Ronay nears apoplexy on the subject of airline food: "Only the truly captive situation of the passenger explains how airlines can get away with serving unadulterated rubbish."

There are few kind words for the flight attendants who pass out "the antiseptic anti-chicken" and "glutinous casseroles." Once meal service is finished, Ronay and his inspectors conclude, the cabin staff forgets about the passenger. Worst of all is "the scandalous state of the toilets. Our experience of filth and discarded bits and pieces does not bear description."

The guide's complaints about El Al range from the food, strictly kosher and inedible, to staffs that seem "tired, unenthusiastic, indifferent and undisciplined. . . None of our inspectors would willingly fly El Al again." Next lowest ranking goes to boozeless Iran Air; while no sane American would ride the Khomeini carrier today, it has never been very good.

On the other hand, it may be worth the trip to Toronto to fly Air Canada to London. The food was only half bad, says Ronay, the service super: "We came away in a good mood, feeling that we had been served by crews who worked as a team and took pride in their job and their country." On Delta, the food had some flavor and was gracefully served, which is not always true on the airline's domestic flights. High praise goes to "the smiling Irish eyes" of Aer Lingus' stewardesses, though the non-Hibernian meals would be rejected at the lowliest Dublin pub. The guide also has high praise for Sir Freddie Laker and his pioneering, price-cutting Skytrain, "the most exciting development on the hitherto complacent transatlantic travel scene." The crews are smart and thoughtful, the meals attractively priced. "But, alas," reports Ronay, "it's the familiar story of dry meat, tasteless, watery vegetables, gray potatoes or a new horror, rubbery scrolls of pasta (and eaten with plastic cutlery at that)."

The soggy saga goes on and on. The TWA dessert that tastes like "mint-colored shaving cream." The "glorified hot water" that passes for coffee on Pan Am. The menus on National, which are rendered in French (even for breakfast), though "no Frenchman would give house-room" to the meal that follows. The canned fruit, the cannonball rolls, the senile salads. Some of the British inspectors' bitterest barbs are aimed at British Airways; pace Robert Morley, its "farcically pretentious Elizabethan menu heralded one of the worst air meals ever eaten." A British Airways official, who might have been speaking for most of the chastised carriers, retorted huffily: "I am afraid Mr. Ronay is totally out of touch with the views and tastes of today's airline passengers." Ho ho!

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.