Jumped on the AUD$88 launch fare as soon as it became available, that is AUD$88 for fare OOL/SIN & $88 SIN/OOL. Must have been about February this year.
For this got use of stairs to get on & off aircraft, free air, seatbelt, a seat that reclined, free use of toilets & reading light & a window shade.
But seriously, who can expect much for $88 for an 8 hour flight including all taxes ?
As only going to SIN for a few days, didn't need much luggage but decided to get 15kgs checked baggage in both directions, $28 each way.
Prepurchased meals that included a drink (water or pepsi) for between $11 & $13 & paid $6 to choose an actual seat number.
Choose window & other person choose aisle. We ended up having a seat spare between us. We asked nicely at check in, was flight full & could that seat remain empty & check in person blocked it for us. Nice gesture, which cost them nothing, as flight was 80% full.
Anyway, got to check in, with plenty of time to spare.
Queue moved fairly quickly. Signs on posts in queue said something to the effect, upgrade to Scoot Biz for $79. Asked & they said it didn't apply to promotional fares. There were other fees (including airport fee), that bumped it up to $139, still a very good offer. They even annnounced it, again once we were on aircraft.
This part was just plain silly. If they have empty seats in Biz & they have an upgrade offer, just take the money from anyone, we would have paid.
Aircraft was an ex SQ 777-200. Think when SQ, seating in economy was 3-3-3. It appeared as old seating had been replaced with new seating 3-4-3 & aisles narrow.
Not sure of total seat count. Seat pitch a little tight, but who cares for $88.
OOL for those who don't know, is a low cost airport, competiing with high cost BNE & is roughly 75-90 mins drive south of BNE, as long as not in peak hour traffic (minimum 4 lanes whole way) & lots of people from BNE & even further north drive down.
Since JL pulled out of BNE, there are now no nonstop flights from BNE to anywhere in Japan. Only way for BNE people to go nonstop to Japan is to depart from OOL.
Long term parking (not undercover) was $15/day. This is reasonable, cf. something like $60/day at SYD (day at SYD is counted as any amount of time before midnight & then after midnight is another day-case that made the papers in OZ recently, a guy parked at SYD Fri night, flew back Sat am & was charged $120 for 2 days, but only there 11 hours), although at OOL if 1 minute over 3 days, you have to pay 4 days, which is going to be the case with anyone flying Scoot at present as only 5 days a week ex OOL & all at same timings. Long term undercover parking was sold out.
With a 9am departure, no peak hour traffic to contend with, however Air Asia X had a flight OOL/KUL departing at same time, as well as 2 x A330 JQ flights to Japan.
OOL has a strange arrangement regarding security. 1stly you go through x-ray to get to domestic gates, then go through another X-ray to get into international gates. Then you get in another queue for passport control.
We were delayed around 25 minutes due to Air Asia X being late.
Scoot did have a brand new iPad type hire for watching movies etc. but for some reason it wasn't working.
Meals were delivered promptly. Food was ok. Given a snack of freeze dried fruit from China.
Female flight attendants wear a uniform that can only be described as not very flattering. (must have been designed in a hurry).
Still managed to get some sleep on daytime flight that arrived SIN only around 10 mins late, so made up 15 mins during flight.
Terminal 3 at SIN looks like it was built in the 80's with colours that seemed dated.
The immigration counters were slow. To our right, was self service immigration machines, but when asked, told only for locals & local workers.
Overall a good cheap flight, which probably would have paid 3 times more for.
Flying SIN/OOL few days later. Check in again relatively quick.
Terminal 3 was a huge shopping mall. Tried to buy some duty free alcohol, but was told had to do that 90 minutes prior to flight, which seemed very inefficient, (considering Singaporeans are known for their efficiency).
Unusual security, as needed to show passport & boarding pass to get into terminal, but no xray until at individual gate. It would have seemed the usual common xray for everyone at one point may have been much more efficient.
Flight boarded on time & departed on time. Flight this time was closer to 90% full.
Meals came out quickly, got some sleep, arrived OOL on time, but Air Asia X had arrived a minute before us & customs & immigration couldn't handle it.
It seemed strange that 2 widebodies where scheduled to arrived at same time.
Even 1/2 hour apart would have worked.
Seemed to take forever to get through & then wait for our checked bag.
Overall flights were 8/10. Only main imporvement could come from OOL management, who need to work out a better system for Xraying departing international passengers & to see if they can reschedule Air Asia X or Scoot to arrive at slightly different times.
Posts: 9
By: domesticOZ - 9th November 2012 at 00:08
Jumped on the AUD$88 launch fare as soon as it became available, that is AUD$88 for fare OOL/SIN & $88 SIN/OOL. Must have been about February this year.
For this got use of stairs to get on & off aircraft, free air, seatbelt, a seat that reclined, free use of toilets & reading light & a window shade.
But seriously, who can expect much for $88 for an 8 hour flight including all taxes ?
As only going to SIN for a few days, didn't need much luggage but decided to get 15kgs checked baggage in both directions, $28 each way.
Prepurchased meals that included a drink (water or pepsi) for between $11 & $13 & paid $6 to choose an actual seat number.
Choose window & other person choose aisle. We ended up having a seat spare between us. We asked nicely at check in, was flight full & could that seat remain empty & check in person blocked it for us. Nice gesture, which cost them nothing, as flight was 80% full.
Anyway, got to check in, with plenty of time to spare.
Queue moved fairly quickly. Signs on posts in queue said something to the effect, upgrade to Scoot Biz for $79. Asked & they said it didn't apply to promotional fares. There were other fees (including airport fee), that bumped it up to $139, still a very good offer. They even annnounced it, again once we were on aircraft.
This part was just plain silly. If they have empty seats in Biz & they have an upgrade offer, just take the money from anyone, we would have paid.
Aircraft was an ex SQ 777-200. Think when SQ, seating in economy was 3-3-3. It appeared as old seating had been replaced with new seating 3-4-3 & aisles narrow.
Not sure of total seat count. Seat pitch a little tight, but who cares for $88.
OOL for those who don't know, is a low cost airport, competiing with high cost BNE & is roughly 75-90 mins drive south of BNE, as long as not in peak hour traffic (minimum 4 lanes whole way) & lots of people from BNE & even further north drive down.
Since JL pulled out of BNE, there are now no nonstop flights from BNE to anywhere in Japan. Only way for BNE people to go nonstop to Japan is to depart from OOL.
Long term parking (not undercover) was $15/day. This is reasonable, cf. something like $60/day at SYD (day at SYD is counted as any amount of time before midnight & then after midnight is another day-case that made the papers in OZ recently, a guy parked at SYD Fri night, flew back Sat am & was charged $120 for 2 days, but only there 11 hours), although at OOL if 1 minute over 3 days, you have to pay 4 days, which is going to be the case with anyone flying Scoot at present as only 5 days a week ex OOL & all at same timings. Long term undercover parking was sold out.
With a 9am departure, no peak hour traffic to contend with, however Air Asia X had a flight OOL/KUL departing at same time, as well as 2 x A330 JQ flights to Japan.
OOL has a strange arrangement regarding security. 1stly you go through x-ray to get to domestic gates, then go through another X-ray to get into international gates. Then you get in another queue for passport control.
We were delayed around 25 minutes due to Air Asia X being late.
Scoot did have a brand new iPad type hire for watching movies etc. but for some reason it wasn't working.
Meals were delivered promptly. Food was ok. Given a snack of freeze dried fruit from China.
Female flight attendants wear a uniform that can only be described as not very flattering. (must have been designed in a hurry).
Still managed to get some sleep on daytime flight that arrived SIN only around 10 mins late, so made up 15 mins during flight.
Terminal 3 at SIN looks like it was built in the 80's with colours that seemed dated.
The immigration counters were slow. To our right, was self service immigration machines, but when asked, told only for locals & local workers.
Overall a good cheap flight, which probably would have paid 3 times more for.
Flying SIN/OOL few days later. Check in again relatively quick.
Terminal 3 was a huge shopping mall. Tried to buy some duty free alcohol, but was told had to do that 90 minutes prior to flight, which seemed very inefficient, (considering Singaporeans are known for their efficiency).
Unusual security, as needed to show passport & boarding pass to get into terminal, but no xray until at individual gate. It would have seemed the usual common xray for everyone at one point may have been much more efficient.
Flight boarded on time & departed on time. Flight this time was closer to 90% full.
Meals came out quickly, got some sleep, arrived OOL on time, but Air Asia X had arrived a minute before us & customs & immigration couldn't handle it.
It seemed strange that 2 widebodies where scheduled to arrived at same time.
Even 1/2 hour apart would have worked.
Seemed to take forever to get through & then wait for our checked bag.
Overall flights were 8/10. Only main imporvement could come from OOL management, who need to work out a better system for Xraying departing international passengers & to see if they can reschedule Air Asia X or Scoot to arrive at slightly different times.