Have just returned from our twelve days overseas. We travelled with Qantas from Perth to Singapore. Air Asia from JB to KL and KL to coughet, and with Tiger from coughet back to Singapore, and then homeward leg with Qantas.
We found the Air Asia flights to be excellent, they were only for short legs. The flight from JB to KL was not in a new airbus, but it was very clean and seemed well maintained. We booked in early and therefore were sitting at the front of the queue. We expected a lot of shoving and pushing on entering the plane, this did not occur and we ended up with seats at the front. Food sold was at a reasonable price. The KL to coughet flight was on a brand new plane, once again we found no problem boarding plane as we booked in early and were one of the first on the plane.
The Tiger from coughet to Singapore flight we were allocated seats next to each other. The plane was definately an older one but was in very good condition and clean. I was surprised that it was no more than 2/3 full for this time of the year.
The Qantas flight was delayed 1.40 hours on leaving Perth due to a fuel leakage problem. They were very good in providing food vouchers, and the the crew wandered amongst the passengers chatting with them, a nice gesture. Our annoyance was more to do with flying as Frequent Flyers and being allocated seating row 59 which meant we had to put put up with a mixture of kitchen and toilet smells mixed together. My screen was just viewable and my wife's was unviewable, too dark, and we couldn't adjust the contrast to improve things. We were annoyed at being placed so far back in to plane as we had booked in early. On the return leg from Singapore we asked no to be placed in the back again, and we were given row 51! Once again my wife's screen was almost unviewable. We had no problems with the food or service on the Qantas flights. We found the leg room to be the same on Qantas, Air Asia and Tiger.
I have a flight booked with Tiger in July from Perth to Singapore. If I find the budget flight to be OK on longer hauls I think I'll be quite happy to pay for the food and entertainment myself from now on. I think Qantas has to have a service that delivers in every aspect to continue to appeal to the tourist market when there is such a price difference between products which are very similar in many ways, expect for the price.
We found the Air Asia flights to be excellent, they were only for short legs. The flight from JB to KL was not in a new airbus, but it was very clean and seemed well maintained. We booked in early and therefore were sitting at the front of the queue. We expected a lot of shoving and pushing on entering the plane, this did not occur and we ended up with seats at the front. Food sold was at a reasonable price. The KL to coughet flight was on a brand new plane, once again we found no problem boarding plane as we booked in early and were one of the first on the plane.
The Tiger from coughet to Singapore flight we were allocated seats next to each other. The plane was definately an older one but was in very good condition and clean. I was surprised that it was no more than 2/3 full for this time of the year.
The Qantas flight was delayed 1.40 hours on leaving Perth due to a fuel leakage problem. They were very good in providing food vouchers, and the the crew wandered amongst the passengers chatting with them, a nice gesture. Our annoyance was more to do with flying as Frequent Flyers and being allocated seating row 59 which meant we had to put put up with a mixture of kitchen and toilet smells mixed together. My screen was just viewable and my wife's was unviewable, too dark, and we couldn't adjust the contrast to improve things. We were annoyed at being placed so far back in to plane as we had booked in early. On the return leg from Singapore we asked no to be placed in the back again, and we were given row 51! Once again my wife's screen was almost unviewable. We had no problems with the food or service on the Qantas flights. We found the leg room to be the same on Qantas, Air Asia and Tiger.
I have a flight booked with Tiger in July from Perth to Singapore. If I find the budget flight to be OK on longer hauls I think I'll be quite happy to pay for the food and entertainment myself from now on. I think Qantas has to have a service that delivers in every aspect to continue to appeal to the tourist market when there is such a price difference between products which are very similar in many ways, expect for the price.