Travel Ideas

The AOL Mystery Flyer returns to the skies to put another airline to the test.

The AOL Mystery Flyer returns to the skies to put another airline to the test.

It's been a while since my last AOL Mystery Flight (on Air Berlin). And as you may have noticed from Twitter, I ended up hanging around Germany for a good month. It was hard to leave with summer finally shining over Northern Europe and the German soccer team doing so well in the World Cup. (Whoever said all good things must come to an end must not have experienced the thrill of watching the world soccer, er, football, championship from a packed and very emotional European street café!)

The AOL Mystery Flyer returns to the skies to put another airline to the test.

Guten Tag! I traveled to Germany recently on a low cost international carrier you may not know about -- Air Berlin. This trip involved the most unlikely city pairing I've ever flown: a nonstop flight from the retirement capital of Fort Myers, Florida, to Düsseldorf, Germany's fashion capital. Who knew? Not many Americans, apparently, as I didn't hear very many other American accents on the flight, and I was one of the few passengers in the "other nationalities" line at customs when we arrived in Germany.

Over the past few weeks, I flew on ten different airlines, from coast to coast -- Florida to California, with lots of stops in between, everywhere from Portland, Oregon to New York City. Making my merry way across the U.S.A.

No hot food, no pillows and blankets, and on some flights, no complimentary water. What's left? The one thing that can turn a long, meal-less coach flight from an ordeal to a joyride is...friendliness: helpful airline personnel and flight attendants with a positive attitude.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be traveling coast-to-coast on ten of our country's busiest airlines as AOL's Mystery Flyer. And I'll be looking to answer one really important question: Is there a price for nice?