In just about a year of staying in Singapore I used up all the pages of my passport and had to apply for a new passport. Most of the pages were filled from weekend trips to different places in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand..
These trips have been mainly possible because of the budget airlines that operate in South East Asia. Its fascinating to see how these airlines operate and their innovative ways of making money. While the airlines find these new ways to make money, the whole customer experience has gone for a toss. Every step starting from booking the flight till reaching the destination keeps reminding the passenger that they chose to fly budget and they have to face the consequence.
One of the first steps of planning a trip is to compare flight prices. The pricing shows on the website home screens are always deceiving and just in case you have selected one of the promotion prices you have to be prepared for rude shocks. I picked up a promotion plan to fly to Bangkok, first they added the airport tax, then they added the convenience charge, then they make me select the seats and add a special charge. It takes me 10 mins to search through the screen to find the button which says that I don’t want a preferred seat. When I find it, it makes me reconfirm multiple times like I am making a grave mistake of not selecting a seat. Seems like I will have to stand through the flight if I don’t select the seat now! Now when I think I am ready to pay there is one more big question, Do you have baggages? The cabin bag has a limit of 7kgs and its one rule that they don’t budge from. I spent weeks trying to look for the prefect cabin bag which was light enough so that it leaves more space to put my stuff. A couple of times I was tempted to carry everything in polythene bags. So, I select No check-in baggages and go ahead with the booking. Again, the website pops up warning with dire consequence if we do not select to have check in baggages. I don’t care and now I think I am ready to make the payment, but wait the website is not yet ready to sell the ticket to me. They have a new thing to sell - “Early Check In”. I thought it was a bizarre idea to sell a voucher which allows people to board the plane first. But it all made sense to me when I travelled a couple of times and had to hold my baggage on my lap because all the space on the cabin storage was taken. So now you can pay a few extra bucks to board the flight first and use up as much space as you want in the cabin storage. Finally after I have made the payment I realized I have been charged a 10-15 bucks extra for payment gateway charges.
Now that the booking ordeal is over its time to face the ordeal of checking in. Till they day of the flight I keep getting regular email updates asking me to check-in online for a small fee, which I ignore. I reach the airport a good two and a half hour before the flight to have enough time to check in. But its never enough. I run around trying to find the right queue to join to check in. I reach the counter and 30 mins of waiting where I am told that to check-in there I would have to pay extra. Its free to check-in at the self check-in kiosk. Frustrated I walk to the kiosk which has another 30 mins waiting queue. Finally the kiosk is not ready to scan the barcode on my ticket and spend 10 mins retrying and then head back to the same counter where I was turned away from. I wonder if the marketing director of the airline has travelled budget himself ever. It no rocket science to figure out that extra charged for check-in at the counter is probably the most ridiculous proposition the airline can offer.
The most dreaded part is the cabin bag size and weight checking before boarding the flight. This is where I can’t go back to check-in my baggage and will have to pay extra to carry any extra grams of weight into the flight. By the time I have boarded the flight I have figured out that I should keep very low expectations from the airline. I know I’ll have to pay for food and drinks if I want any, but now they have started charging for water. Water has to be bought and you are not allowed to bring in outside food, drinks or water into the flight! So you either buy from the airline or starve till the flight lands. The in-flight attendants have become more of sales executives than being part of the hospitality industry. I am sure they have sales targets and they wouldn’t care the least to serve anything to the penny pincher passengers.
While you have to pay for water, food, drink, blanket, ear plugs, etc, I can’t imagine how this industry is going to go further. I wouldn’t be surprised if we are expected to drink from the bathroom tap for free water. Oh wait! I am sure they would soon start charging for using the bathrooms, so the water there is not free either. Put a dollar in the box to unlock the bathroom door! Another couple of years and I wouldn’t be surprised if the seats have a coin slot for recline. The seat belts could be pay per use, put a coin to unlock the seat belt.. or stay tied to the seat for ever.
Well if the airlines were not doing enough to make the experience really bad, the airports are adding on to it. The budget terminals are the worst terminals ever. Its like they want to make you feel un-welcomed to a city because you flew in on a budget airline. Long walks, no escalators, poor air-conditioning, dirty bathrooms, etc are all part of the package of flying budget. Well even after experiencing all these, I don’t think I would ever opt for a full fare flight around South East Asia, because it just doesn’t seem worth the money spent. So no matter how much I grunt about the budget airline service, I am glad they exist but I hope they improve the service so that the passengers don’t feel miserable at the end of the journey.
