Good News For Travelers-Dulles To London, New Airline All Business Class!!!

[CCotton5]

Great news for travelers from the Washington, DC and Baltimore area. There is a new airline at Dulles, (I am not a travel agent). The new airline is MaxJet. http://www.MaxJet.com The company has taken 767's and converted them into all business class, 102 seats. I read this in the Washington Post and booked a flight on it for us because we are on the QM2 leaving from Southampton this summer. The airline starts service on March 15th from Dulles to Stansted, England and back. The cost is about 1/4 what other major airlines want for economy or economy plus. Right now, the airline is leaving from New York to Stansted. Thought I would pass on the good news to CC travelers. I will write a review about our cruise and the new airline when we return. Has anyone from the New York area traveled on MaxJet?

[HawkeyeTraveler]

That is indeed good news. We live in the DC area and will be cruising in July. What arrangements have you made for your trip from Stansted to Southampton?

[highcbob]

WOW! United is six times the price in business ( literally )

 

I even bet the onboard service, food and wine is six times

better on Maxjet than UA as well. :)

[tartegnin]

This looks GREAT! We've got complicated travel in July as we have family coming from the US to Europe, and then our daughter returning with them to the US while we cruise to NY, and then we fly back to Europe with our daughter ... this makes a lot of travel a whole lot less expensive! We're going to look into it.

 

When are you travelling in July? We're on the July 18 crossing.

[CCotton5]

I'm glad that I could tell you about my find on airfare. It was the Washington Post on the front page of the travel section I found news of the week. I was elated when I found out about this. I booked our flight within a week. The company is already flying from New York to Stansted. They took 767's and converted them to only 102 business class seats!!! Make sure that when you go to the site, look on the home page or page for flights, in the lower left hand corner you will see a code for the new flights. I think you have to type in IntroDC and it will give you the price of $999 round trip. I only booked one way since we are coming westbound on the QM2 to New York and my price was $828.00 including taxes. You can choose your seat also from a seating plan after you put in your desired dates, fill in your name, e-mail address and then click on making your reservation.

 

As for how to get from Stansted to London, I found a guy on cruise critic that has used Woodford taxi and limo service. We are flying into Stansted and then spending the night in London and then using Woodford to pick us up at the hotel and drive us to Southampton the next morning. I'm to the age that I will have to spend one night in a hotel before taking the trip to Southampton. When you go to Maxjet's web site, they will recommend a taxi service, but we are going with Woodford. I will get the exact website for them. Woodford will give you a quote for trips from Stansted to London and Stansted to Southampton.

 

We are going westbound on the QM2 in August.

 

Hope this helps,

Christy

[signman]

Woodford IS very reliable and offers very good service. They are easily reached at http://www.woodfordchauffeurcars.co.uk

[Sandyone]

As for how to get from Stansted to London, I found a guy on cruise critic that has used Woodford taxi and limo service. We are flying into Stansted and then spending the night in London and then using Woodford to pick us up at the hotel and drive us to Southampton the next morning. I'm to the age that I will have to spend one night in a hotel before taking the trip to Southampton. When you go to Maxjet's web site, they will recommend a taxi service, but we are going with Woodford. I will get the exact website for them. Woodford will give you a quote for trips from Stansted to London and Stansted to Southampton.

 

We are going westbound on the QM2 in August.

 

Hope this helps,

Christy

 

Stansted is considered a "London" airport, but methinks it is a little under two hours to get to London by road. That's without traffic. You might want to consider staying near Stansted for the first night and then making the trip directly to Southampton the next day. If you wanted to actually be *in* London, disregard this!

 

Thanks for the tip on the airline. Is this an American carrier? I might be needing flights this summer to Dulles, but can only fly on a US carrier.

[CCotton5]

Sandyone, thanks for the information about Stansted. We have already contracted with a limo service, Woodford, to pick us up at Stansted, take us to a London hotel and then leave the next day via the limo service and they will drive us to Southampton. I believe that Maxjet is an American airline. Go to their website and click on the pull-down icons and it tells you about their airline. They were certified in November of 2005. They have been flying out of New York City to Stansted and the new service starts up at Dulles in March.

 

Christy

[JDRMYS]

The seats on Maxjet seem to be almost exactly the same as the business/first seats on Delta which, IMHO, are O.K. but not great. The tickets are priced on a sliding scale depending on how many seats have already been sold on an individual flight. In other words, if you are the 1st passenger to book a seat on a flight you get a huge bargain. As the flight fills up, the fares increase. For the last few seats, the prices are fairly high.

[CCotton5]

As far as I can tell, from all of the information on the MaxJet site, the seats have a 60 inch pitch and then recline 160 degrees, (which 180 would be completely flat). I would rather have this for about the same price as Cattle Car on United or Cattle Car Plus. I was trying to give useful information to people who would rather spend their money wisely. BA and Virgin Airways wanted approximately $4000.00 for a business class seat.

 

So, the bottom line is if you don't want it, don't buy it. I was trying to be informative about what I found for people on the Cruise Critic board leaving out of Dulles Airport in Washington, DC.

[JDRMYS]

CCotton5,

 

I wasn't trying to denigrate the value of the information that you gave about MaxJet. I think that it's a great idea & I hope that it prospers. I simply wanted to point out its limitations. However, these limitations are greatly outweighed by the wonderfully low fares that one can get if one buys tickets long enough in advance that there are still plenty of seats available on the flight.

[greatam]

The tickets are priced on a sliding scale depending on how many seats have already been sold on an individual flight. In other words, if you are the 1st passenger to book a seat on a flight you get a huge bargain. As the flight fills up, the fares increase. For the last few seats, the prices are fairly high.

 

All airlines sell seats this way. It's called yield management. Cheap seats sell out early, so you generally pay more the closer you get to departure date. Even if you had to pay the maximum fare, the MaxJet fares are still slightly less expensive than BA or Virgin. Now the big question-we need to find someone who has actually flown this flight. Is the inflight service on par with BA or Virgin or most of the foreign carriers? If it is even slightly better, it is truly a bargain.

[eroller]

I would check out their interline agreement with other airlines before I would book them. I imagine they have very few aircraft (one flight a day), so if the airplane has a "mechanical" what are your options? Will Maxjet protect you on another airline to get you to your destination, or are you stuck until Maxjet can fix the plane or get a replacement which I imagine will be difficult.

 

This wouldn't be much of an issue if you have time, but if you are flying in the day of the cruise it could be a major issue. Other airlines my not recognize Maxjet for interline ticketing which means you won't be protected on something like AA or UA should your Maxjet flight be canceled.

 

Ernie

[greatam]

Hi Ernie,

 

Here is a thread discussing this very issue. Globaliser did a great job of explaining the details of mechanicals. Obviously, you would want to fly a day or two before.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=295029

 

Gina

 

OT-how's the new job??? Do you have any time for cruises or crossings?

[Globaliser]

The airline starts service on March 15th from Dulles to Stansted, England and back.

Maxjet has finally confirmed that there is to be a delay in the Washington to London service. The first IAD-STN flight will now be on Monday 3 April 2006, and the first STN-IAD flight on Tuesday 4 April 2006.

 

IAD-STN will be operated on days 12357, and obviously STN-IAD will be operated on days 12346.

 

Press release here.