Budget Airline - Budget Courtesy

Mr. Travel would like to take some time to comment about the airline he took recently on an 8-hour flight to Gold Coast. Some of us are budget travelers and when you are traveling in a large group, you get more "budgeter". So we were very excited when we saw that Air Asia flew to Coolangata. We booked a promo ticket on this premier budget (which is quite an oxymoron) airline but we didn't count on a budget service, budget plane, budget food with budget taste and definitely budget courtesy.

With Air Asia, the first thing you see from the advertisement are all the nice flight cost to the many destinations that they fly to but what they don't tell you is that you have to pay for EVERYTHING else that after that. Airport tax, fuel surcharge, baggage handling cost, overloading cost, food, water, neck-pillow, blanket, eye-shade, air conditioning, seats, seat belt, windows and the air to breathe.

Every bag checked in was charged extra and if you exceed 15kg, that's extra too. No pleading or courtesy extended since it is all captured in the system and cannot be changed. Coupled with all these charges, it's no surprise that some of the passengers were seen selling their blood just to cover this unexpected cost. For domestic flights, the further you can travel is to Kota Kinabalu and that is about 2 1/2 hours away. So you can go without food and you don't want to try the so-called famous "Pak Naseer Nasi Lemak" which tastes just like our roadside nasi lemak, only more stale and expensive.

But when you are flying 8 hours and no food or water is allowed on the plane (due to security reason, cause God knows what you can do with plain water when hijacking a plane), you have no choice but to buy their overpriced and super tasteless meals. On top of that the condition of the plane looks as if it just came out of Afghanistan Air (motto : someday we will have a plane that flies).

My seat (to and back from GC) cannot recline. The overhead reading light doesn't work and so does the service light and the arm rest was falling off. It was hanging on for dear life and if I so much as break wind in its direction, it was going to fall off and die. I swear I am not making this up. The service was pretty cold as well. While they were not rude but they certainly weren't there to make this a better experience for you. It's as if they can't wait for this flight to land so that they can get rid of you.

When we were coming back, there wasn't even enough food to last the first block of passengers. There were passengers who pre-booked and it was cheaper but I think you should have at least enough for half the plane. So when I included all the cost incurred on this flight, it wasn't that much cheaper than Malaysian Airlines. I so miss the normal airlines where you can check in as many bags as you want, drink as much as you want, bring your own food, have your reading light, given comfort items like eye-shade, neck-pillow, pillow and blanket. It cost RM35 on Air Asia without the pillow. Pillows don't exist on Air Asia.

When I traveled with my kids, the MAS crew made them felt very welcome with gifts, colouring books, hot chocolate and will try to help them settle. No one cares for you on Air Asia.

There was this one incident when I took Air Asia to Krabi. The Chairman, Datuk Pahamin was also on the flight. He stood at the front and nodded at people coming in. Not sure what that nod was for but being polite, most people nodded back when an old man in a total white outfit looking like a hospital attendant, nods at you. But he made such a fuss when his bag didn't arrive on time and got the staff to personally get out into the baggage truck to get his luggage. I guess he had a corpse to deliver. Also there was a priority boarding feature for those who wanted to pay extra for it. So being the Chairman, he just barged into the priority lane, ignoring the queue (incidentally were made up of his customers) and staff's protest. Since he was wearing all white, the airline people at Krabi probably thought he was some cheesy lounge singer who wanted to board first without paying the extra.

When I read the in-flight magazine (which you can't take back by the way, unlike MAS' "Going Places") where they publish letters from alleged passengers, saying how they enjoyed their flight, how courteous the crew were and how tasty their food tasted, I couldn't help wondering if it was true or just hallucination from the lost of blood they had to sell to get into the plane.

I hope MAS completes their merger or whatever and start driving more promotions to help us budget travelers since I don't have that much more blood to spare.