Air Asia, Is this the worlds worst airline?

[pe7e]

Writing in with complaints to budget airlines is a somewhat pointless exercise, they never set out to provide you with a quality service in the first place, the marketing strategy of these carriers is to offer bargain basement low fares. This is only achievable by reducing overheads to the absolute minimum including staff costs, aircraft costs (old planes, minimum maintanance : luggage allowance (less fuel) no inflight service (bring your own water & snacks) Budget airlines have opened travel possibilities to people of limited financial means, and for that I applaude them. Thankfully there is plenty of choice in the market place, if nice new planes that fly on time and complementary drinks are important to you, then book business class with SK, TG or one of the other quality carriers and pay the price, which incidentaly has been reduced by the presence in the market place of the budget airlines. Expecting a similar level of service for a fraction of the price is unrealistic. ::

If you want a benchmark to compare airlines to, try an internal flight in Columbia, Peru or China, then you will know what 'bad' actually is.

 

[ZMAN Z28]

Everyone:

 

I have flown them like 3 or 4 times, and have had friends fly them. But I must say that it was when they started up their domestic about a year ago, but in my cases, they were always on time, and cheap. I only flew between Udon and BKK.

 

Z

[Khun_Kong]

pe7e said:

Writing in with complaints to budget airlines is a somewhat pointless exercise, they never set out to provide you with a quality service in the first place, the marketing strategy of these carriers is to offer bargain basement low fares. This is only achievable by reducing overheads to the absolute minimum including staff costs, aircraft costs (old planes, minimum maintanance : luggage allowance (less fuel) no inflight service (bring your own water & snacks) Budget airlines have opened travel possibilities to people of limited financial means, and for that I applaude them. Thankfully there is plenty of choice in the market place, if nice new planes that fly on time and complementary drinks are important to you, then book business class with SK, TG or one of the other quality carriers and pay the price, which incidentaly has been reduced by the presence in the market place of the budget airlines. Expecting a similar level of service for a fraction of the price is unrealistic. ::

If you want a benchmark to compare airlines to, try an internal flight in Columbia, Peru or China, then you will know what 'bad' actually is.

 

Good post.

 

 

Years ago, my former mother-in-law told me that Polish Air was the worst she flew. This was back in the days when smoking was allowed on planes, with smoking and non-smoking sections.

 

She said that the smoking section was the left-hand side of the plane!

[iuytrede]

Took Air Asia Bkk-Phuket last week, 480 B including tax, no problems, everything ok, on time.

 

I will now buy a ticket to KL for 100 B including tax.

[gomez]

Flown them four times, couple return trips to Singapore, and will again. It's a discount airline, no better or worse than discount airlines in the West.

[Guest]

Bought a ticket to Chiang Mia, no problems.

 

I guess like everybody else, they have bad hair days.

[gregchambers]

Did Airasia to Singapore on Thursday, they consolidated two flights into one which was then an hour later, which meant that I was three hours late altogether - flight itselt was fine, nice chicken sandwich for 50 baht. They actually emailed me Thursday morning with the news of the flight change but nothing in the subject line or body of the text (which was check-in instructions) only as an attachment which I did not notice at the time! The flight that was cancelled was the cheap one (699++ baht) BTW, so I suspect that happens quite a lot! Overall, low price wins out against slightly disorganized information, etc.

 

BTW Can recommend Hotel81, budget chain of Singapore hotels in various locations. Rooms are small but very well finished and good value by Singapore standards.

[BelgianBoy]

MightyMouse said:

Bought a ticket to Chiang Mia, no problems.

 

I think people complain about "flying" with them, not about "buying" tickets

 

BB

[dean]

I flew them twice. Six months ago, they lost one of my checked bags on a Sunday morning flight to Chiang Mai that was less than half full. They wouldn't deliver it but my hotel offers airport shuttle service and picked it up for me. My two large bags were empty going there but were full going back and 11 kilos over their 15 kilo limit. They wanted to charge me but after arguing with them because they lost my bag for a day, they waived the overcharge. Two weeks ago, I again flew the to C. M. on an evening flight that was almost full. This time, they did not lose either of my empty bags. I, however, took the train back to Bangkok overnight to avoid any charges on my overweight bags and to get some sleep on the train, which I did not. It was a bumpy ride and the curtain that you close once your seat is converted into a bed (choose the lower beds, not the overhead beds) doesn't keep noise out, like people talking most of the night.

[thalenoi]

Just flew return Bangkok-Udon Thani with Thai Air Asia yesterday. All went fine, left on time despite we had to wait 10 minutes for the last passenger to find the plane on the tarmac (the only one out there)