Overall: A fun budget airline with a few understandable flaws
Budget airlines are always a gamble. As someone trying to save a bit of money, these travelers need to of course understand that a few of the services are going to go out the window with the dramatic drop in cost associated with their ticket prices – this is very understandable and anyone who doesn’t realize that a ticket that costs 40% less isn’t going to have free-flow booze and meal service is living in dreamland.
I understand this and am normally willing to not have these things because well, I don’t really look forward to airplane food and since most of my flights are only a couple of hours long, I can go without a free snack for a little while.
Scoot Airlines is based out of Singapore – their website is humorous and fun, if you can imagine that being the case. On board they refer to the flight-attendants as “Scooties” and their in-flight menus have jokes in them and everything is colorful and fun. I think this fun attitude extends to the flight staff as well because they all seem to quite like their jobs and are very nice to the people on board. I’m not saying other airlines are mean, but other airlines are not terribly “genuine” in their sentiment. I didn’t get that feeling from the Scooties and while I am relatively certain they aren’t really “hoping to see me in the future” seeing everyone being treated with respect is nice.
Flights are not fun experiences, not back in coach anyway. So a little bit of some actual friendliness goes a long way in my book. I don’t expect this sort of treatment from a budget airline so I am delighted that I received it.
Like I mentioned the food is not free. However, this particular flight that I was taking from Singapore to the Gold Coast Australia was around 5000 Baht with Scoot. With a full-service airline such as Singapore Air or Malaysian Airlines (or insert anyone else that does the flight) the ticket price was nearly (or more than) double. Meals are 200B or so and beers are around 140B. There is almost no chance that I am “going to get my moneys worth” on a 7 hour flight by way of drinking 45 beers and having 3 meals.
I am happy to pay for what I get if it means the overall flight cost will be kept down. I can order my own beers and pay for them and for the most part I don’t want crappy airplane food so you can keep it.
So all in all I would say that I have been quite pleased with Scoot. Now on to the only bad things I could identify (I’m on one of the Scoot flights that I took today right now.)
The long-haul flight (7 hours, which really isn’t that long) has seats that are just fine. I am in economy class and I have enough leg room and am actually comfortably using my rather large laptop in front of me with no issue. However, the flight that I took before this one (which was only 2 hours) the seats were absurdly small. I am about 180cm and 90kg (6 feet tall and about 190 lbs.) I am not small, but I am also not huge. The seat I had on the last plane it was almost impossible to move in the seat at all and my knees were locked into the seat in front of me. Thankfully the person sitting in front of me decided not to recline because I don’t know how we would have handled the physics of that particular situation.
Scoot uses this as an opportunity to upgrade you to the exit rows, which they charge a rather hefty premium for (it was something like $40 extra for a 2 hour flight.) Therefore, I just suffered through it and felt extremely claustrophobic for those 2 hours and was very pleased to get the hell outta there at the end.
This is not the first small seat I have had, but I would venture to guess that it was likely the smallest. I was dreading getting on this 7 hour flight and had planned to meditate in order to not freak out from being constrained only to discover that the legroom is easily 12 inches greater on this plane and I am still in the cheap seats.
Overall, I would say that Scoot is a wonderful airline, especially if you think like I do but happen to be a bit smaller person. If you are searching online one day and notice that Scoot is significantly less expensive than say United, just understand that you are getting literally nothing for free on the plane but for most people, you don’t need that crap anyway.
I really wouldn't mind that much if I had little space for my legs after being treated nicely by the lovely scooties. Flights are pretty boring, and the last thing wanted is a hostile attendant. Even when the seats are comfortable with enough space for your legs, his or her hostile towards you can worsen your flight experience.
I'm guessing the bald headed man in the picture is the senior most scootie .....Just joking
Dude, I feel you with regards to the small seats! I think I have flown scoot a few years back. But one airline I had such small seats my knees were pressed into the seat in front and my shoulder pressed into the fuselage.
I have flown Thai air long haul and luckily I was ‘upgraded’ to the exit seat, but with no seats in front so my legs were stretched out. Was the only flight I’ve ever slept on and I do for about 6 hours! I was so confused when I woke up from actually sleeping more than 30mins or so!
Anyways, glad you had a good flight with an airline you’d recommend!
Hi @gooddream, if we are travelling for just 2 to 3 hours distance through air plane and we should not buy tickets with high price. Scoot is different from other airlines that is why you post this article. I think they adopt this different attitude because they want to grow their business. By this different method they want to stay in the memories of people. What you think.
nice post again :))
Nice! Wonderfull