So many times, the budget airline, Tiger Airways has let us down... I've come to the conclusion that instead of saving about $50 on a flight with them (approximately 50% less than Virgin when sales are on, and 65% less than Qantas), the trade-offs aren't really worth it.
1. Flight times are not the best ... they have at most 2 flights a day... so we got a flight from Canberra to Melbourne for tomorrow night @ 9.55pm. Virgin and Qantas have more flights and they are scheduled at a better time, e.g. between 5pm - 8pm (and throughout the day).
2. We received an email in the last 2 hours (less than 24 hours before the scheduled flight), advising that there will be delays (Perth Airport's runway will be closed between 2am and 6am on Saturday 3rd October). I suppose I don't have all the information, but as a result of this closure, a flight from the day before is delayed 3 hours???) This is a 1-hour domestic flight, not an international flight where you can sleep for a few hours, overnight!
3. There is no guarantee that the new scheduled departure time of 12.45 am is going to run on time. Who knows - they might be delayed another hour or two.
4. On-line check in is NOT available... and so they make you turn up there at least an hour early (for a rushed, high-pressured check-in experience) as they close the check-in for the flight 45 minutes before the scheduled departure time. If you're the nice rule-abiding person and you turn up say 90 minutes early ... there would be easily 60-100 other nice rule-abiding persons ahead of you. So you end up waiting to be served. Alternatively, you could turn up 2 hours early, but of course you get to WAIT the next 2 hours for your flight to leave, again ASSUMING that it isn't delayed.
So, for the $50 ... you might end up losing more money (e.g. taking a cab from the airport as it's so late at night), losing a lot of time, patience, energy and effort from waiting and waiting and waiting, and worse - having your plans changed on you, with no compensation, refunds, credit, flight change options, nothing - ZIP, NADA, ZILCH.
Tiger Airways - good for competition ... hopefully they'll keep Virgin Blue and Qantas fairly competitive (though Virgin is not making much $$ lately) but I'm going to take my $50 and happily put in the extra $30 - $50 to go to their competition!
1. Flight times are not the best ... they have at most 2 flights a day... so we got a flight from Canberra to Melbourne for tomorrow night @ 9.55pm. Virgin and Qantas have more flights and they are scheduled at a better time, e.g. between 5pm - 8pm (and throughout the day).
2. We received an email in the last 2 hours (less than 24 hours before the scheduled flight), advising that there will be delays (Perth Airport's runway will be closed between 2am and 6am on Saturday 3rd October). I suppose I don't have all the information, but as a result of this closure, a flight from the day before is delayed 3 hours???) This is a 1-hour domestic flight, not an international flight where you can sleep for a few hours, overnight!
3. There is no guarantee that the new scheduled departure time of 12.45 am is going to run on time. Who knows - they might be delayed another hour or two.
4. On-line check in is NOT available... and so they make you turn up there at least an hour early (for a rushed, high-pressured check-in experience) as they close the check-in for the flight 45 minutes before the scheduled departure time. If you're the nice rule-abiding person and you turn up say 90 minutes early ... there would be easily 60-100 other nice rule-abiding persons ahead of you. So you end up waiting to be served. Alternatively, you could turn up 2 hours early, but of course you get to WAIT the next 2 hours for your flight to leave, again ASSUMING that it isn't delayed.
So, for the $50 ... you might end up losing more money (e.g. taking a cab from the airport as it's so late at night), losing a lot of time, patience, energy and effort from waiting and waiting and waiting, and worse - having your plans changed on you, with no compensation, refunds, credit, flight change options, nothing - ZIP, NADA, ZILCH.
Tiger Airways - good for competition ... hopefully they'll keep Virgin Blue and Qantas fairly competitive (though Virgin is not making much $$ lately) but I'm going to take my $50 and happily put in the extra $30 - $50 to go to their competition!
2 comments:
I had a very nasty incidence with Tiget airways too and I literally hated the experience. The ground staff were the rudest people I have encountered in my life. Its not only a budget airline but also the nastiest airline ever. I felt cheated flying the airlines. The person at the desk demanded to see my onwards ticket rudely on a one way ticket from kuala lumpur to singapore. I told him that I have a valid ticket and am not liable to answer him since he is not in immigration and by what authority is a check in staff asking for my onward ticket is beyond me. Then comes the worst part. I was over weight in my luggage. I was asked to cough up 8 times the ticket price for extra kilos i was carrying. And since it was a cheap airline (i will not call it a budget airline) I assumed the extra kilos will be charged nominally but it turned out to be a huge sum. The ground staff rudely told me you should have checked how much to carry before now pay up or we will not board you. I demanded to see the manager to complaint about the staffs behaviour but there was no supervisor there only worker class people manning the boarding. I would rather fly air asia anyday than this cheap and rude airlines.
I'm wondering what the person at the desk did, when you refused to show them an onward ticket. I don't understand the need for it, since it was between KUL-SIN. I do know, however, when I flew one way with MAS from KUL-MEL, they had to check my passport to ensure that I had Australian Permanent Residence, or they were not allowed to let me check-in / board.
As for the overweight luggage... I guess you were just caught very unaware. They ARE a budget airline... so what profits they don't make off you for selling you a seat / ticket, they have to make it back by charging for other things, such as:
* credit card fee, for when paying for your booking
* food and beverages in-flight
* overweight luggage.
All airlines charge an arm and a leg for overweight luggage. I wouldn't be surprised if you were charged the same if you travelled with MAS, but because the baseline Tiger fare was probably low, you would feel very outraged that the overweight luggage cost was 8x your original fare.
As for rude staff - I don't know. Maybe they have a poor attitude. :(
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