North Luzon Monitor

North Luzon

Flying Budget

JP Villanueva
Latest posts by JP Villanueva (see all)

A few months back, I had a bad experience with a budget airline flying from Davao. I was asked to pay an excessively expensive amount for exceeding the baggage allowance. Long story short, I vowed never to take this budget airline ever again.

When I came home to the Philippines over the weekend, I chose this same budget airline because it was the only airline that had a flight on the time that I preferred for my flight back to Taiwan. And I had four lovely surprises from choosing this budget airline.

My usual preference are the Taiwanese airlines like EVA Air and China Airlines. I have had great experience flying with these airlines. Their services are exceptional and very efficient. Their planes are clean and the seats are comfortable. The food they serve inflight is delectable.

I had already prepared myself to be disappointed, annoyed and frustrated with the services that I will be getting from this airline. I expected that there would be a long queue when dropping the luggage and getting the boarding pass. I expected that there would be at least one change in the boarding gate. I expected that there would be delays in the flight. 

I did not order inflight food because I may not like it. I paid for an add-on luggage for 20 kilos just in case my hand carry luggage would exceed the limit of 7 kilos. I was mentally and emotionally prepared to go to this battle.

While in transit to the airport, I already checked in online, and I was surprised that an e-boarding pass was already provided. Furthermore, a QR code could also be downloaded so I can print the tag for my check-in luggage. I felt quite uncomfortable because this is the first time I am using these.

I arrived at the airport three hours before my scheduled flight. I went straight to the check in counters of AirAsia. I weighed my luggage and it was more than 7 kilos. I looked for the QR code reader for my check in luggage, but I could not find it, so I just went to the counter to drop my luggage. For the second surprise, the queue was not long. I was able to drop my luggage and get my boarding pass within 15 minutes.

I had some extra time to have my dinner before I had to go through immigration. I took my time eating my dinner. Thanks to the fast check in process. After that, I went to the immigration area. This, again, did not take so long.

On my way to the boarding gate, I heard the announcement calling the passengers of the AirAsia flight I am in that they are ready to board, that is 40 minutes before the time of take off. As soon as I reached the boarding gates, I did not have to take a seat, and queued immediately to be boarded. That’s the third surprise.

For the fourth surprise, the flight was on time. The plane ferried at exactly 11:15 as scheduled.

These four surprises were, of course, unexpected. These would not be surprises if these were expected, right? But I intended this redundancy for emphasis. A budget airline could actually provide good service.

In this day and time, all firms in a highly competitive industry should be able to compete with the bigger firms that have the benefit of economies of scale. In the airline industry, the budget airlines would usually offer cheaper airfare in order to entice customers, which may forego comfort of passengers and quality of their service.

On the other hand, the perception that higher end airlines would provide better service quality and comfort, but the airfare would be quite expensive. This is the reason why passengers who pay a lot and get bad service in return would be disappointed.

My latest experience just proves that even if one is flying budget, one still gets good service. I just hope that this is not an isolated case. I am one who is not stingy in giving recognition when it is due, so congratulations to AirAsia for the nice experience. I hope this is more the rule than an exception.

 

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