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Air travel can be one of the most traumatic and stressful things a person can do, so it's not surprising that there are such extremes of experiences. Personally, I tend to get a bit on edge because of I'm usually traveling several time zones, so I know that I'll be severely jet-lagged by the time I reach my destination. The bad airplane food doesn't help either, but perhaps with the fact that a lot of airlines force you to pay for the food now, that means I'll bring my own and cut down on the heartburn. But I digress.

Best experience:
This one is a tie, with Thai Airlines and Cathay Pacific being tops in my book.

*I flew Cathay Pacific several times while on a trip to Asia, and I must say, their customer service is top-notch. I was flying economy from Vancouver to Hong Kong, which is a 13 hour trip, yet they made the trip quite enjoyable. We were given menus, yes, menus, for all the food that was going to be served during the flight. The menu itself was in 3 or 4 languages, nicely bound and in good condition. About an hour into the flight we were given little Travel Kits, which contained slippers, a toothbrush & paste, and an eye shade. Now the eye shade is a rather banal object when you consider it at first blush, however this was no ordinary eye shade. Cathay Pacific had actually put a strip of Velcro on the outside to which you could affix a message to alert the flight attendants. You had a choice of a green message or red message in several languages, which said "Yes, wake me for meals", or "No, do not wake me for meals". I thought this was a stroke of genius. I can't tell you how many times I've been woken up during a sound sleep on a plane for something I didn't want. Sheer genius.

*Thai Airlines is another one that is tops in my book, mostly because they actually gave every passenger an orchid when they boarded. This boggled my mind because in any other part of the world, doing this would cost several thousand dollars per flight. Since orchids grow pretty much wild in Thailand, it is an inexpensive way to make their passengers feel good. Bravo. Their customer service was wonderful as well, with very polite and nice staff and on-time departures and arrivals.

Worst Experience:
Again, this is going to have to be a tie, between the now defunct Canadian Airlines and Alitalia Airlines.

* I could actually cite several bad experiences with Alitalia, however there is one that sticks in my mind. On a 6am flight from Rome to Milan, the flight attendant came by with the

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