I must admit i havent taken a budget flight in over a year and recent stories in the news over how passengers keep getting stranded without support has me spooked. It does seem the airline industry is getting worse and these occurences are now a norm. Whats your worst budget airline story?
Budget Airline (International Flights) Horror Stories
NotAnAudiophile on 30/01/2018 - 23:16
Comments
This happens often on most airlines so more a 1st world issue than a horror story.
Full service flight: Chicken or Lamb? to which I replied, Chicken, then "I am sorry sir, we ran out of Chicken, here is Lamb"…. :((
Experienced the same thing on Malaysia Airlines. Sometimes you think, why bother asking?
when you can fly one way from Australia to Athens or Berlin for just over $300 on brand Scoots new B787's, who cares. So food & bags aren't included so what. Add $13 for food & not much more for checked bag.
Back in mid 80's flew on a deal on Japan Airlines who had just lost a 747 with all on board & so were cheap for $2000 return.
I had a flight with multiple carriers though to Europe and the first was on Airasia, and i can see from a few days before the flight is only half full. Low and behold night before the flight Airasia SMS says flight cancelled (no doubt loss making flight), forcing me to book a last minute full service airline at double the cost. And I had to chase them 2 months before a full refund.
These penny pinching ways (to them it costs nothing, but to travellers it costs big time) means I will never be an Airasia customer again.
How do you know it was only half full?
Do they really cancel not-so-full flights that often? The plane is usually required at destination for next scheduled flight with quick turnaround. Just a couple of weeks ago I flew Scoot to Singapore, lucky if it was half-full.
Had a look at the seat selection page a couple of days before the flight. Less than 25% of the seats had been chosen.
I think AirAsia you have to pay for seat selection? You're making an assumption it was only half full.
Less than 25% of people chose to pay for a seat selection…
The rest will be assigned at check in.
to them it costs nothing
I'm not sure if that's really true. The tickets on budget airlines are so cheap nowadays that some cost less than a taxi fare to the airport.
While it's not the passenger's fault that the airline decides to cancel half empty flights, I think that passengers should understand these types of risks and consider the possibilities when making bookings.
and consider the possibilities when making bookings.
Care to give an example? I can think of having another booking with another airline, but that costs money, which doesnt make the original a low cost flight?
Or do you have a taxi backup plan to go to your destination?
Really would like your insights into this.
When I said "possibilities", I meant the possibilities that things such as flight delays or cancellations can happen. It's known that there are more scenarios/situations for budget airlines that can result in delays/cancellations - example, they are more likely to cancel when scheduled flights are half-empty to avoid suffering monetary loss. Full-service airlines do that less often.
As a passenger, when booking connecting flights (especially on different airlines), it would be common sense to leave a bigger-than-normal transit time between landing and boarding the next flight. Airlines take no responsibility if you don't leave enough time in between different flights during transit.
Personally, when I book flights, I never book a budget airline where I know that I have to jump on a connecting flight soon after landing. Booking on a full service airline doesn't completely eliminate the risk, but it's my way of minimising that risk. I do realise the cost is higher, but with anything else, that convenience comes at a cost.
I guess I read the original post about switching to full service arirline as meaning the flight was cancelled for the day, meaning a flight going out a day later, vs a flight that leaves an hour later.
Thanks I understand what your meaning was now, and that is always a sensible plan for budget bookings inc flight delays etc.
I think its not the fault thats the issue, its the morality of cancelling a flight just because you can (after a passenger has bought a ticket), just because it is unprofitable for you. If so, then don't advertise that flight because it is equivalent to misrepresentation.
Vote with your wallet against airlines with no morals then.
Missing 2 flights on a multi-stop journey due to delay "caused by late arrival of the crew", covered by the travel insurance though.
I don’t think the likelihood of a cancellation is increasing - simply the increase in volume of people travelling and social media as a tool to spread their discontent when things have gone wrong.
I was flying back from Vietnam in 2016. Air Asia from Da Nang (DAD) to Kuala Lumpur (KUL) Air Asia X from Kuala Lumpur to the Gold Coast (OOL).
The DAD-KUL flight was great, I even won a free teddy bear for Chinese New Year.
KUL-OOL started out fine, but I was seated next to a Chinese lady who obviously had quite bad stomach pains, and her husband. When she boarded I could see she was in pain, and as the flight continued she got worse and worse to the point where she was having convulsions and moaning very loudly.
About 2 hours into our flight the pilot announced that we would have to divert to Denpasar (DPS) to offload this lady. We landed in DPS and the ambulance officers came on board and she was removed from the flight.
All good now, I now had a row of seats to myself and could stretch out. We departed DPS after an hour or so and started our way (again) to OOL.
About an hour later the pilot came back on the PA to announce we had another sick passenger and would have to return a second time to DPS to offload this passenger. So again we returned to DPS to offload a second passenger.
The trouble was that now the flight crew were out of hours. They couldn't continue the flight to OOL. We were all offloaded at DPS about 2am. We all had to buy Indonesian visas as we would require a hotel in DPS until they could get us a crew to operate the flight.90 minutes later (~3.30am) we were through to baggage claim. Everyone was tired and grumpy, and the poor Denpasar Air Asia crew (who never really handled a lot of passengers) were scrambling to find hotels for about 300 angry people.
It took almost two hours to find hotels for all of us, so it was now the morning in DPS. I got a room at the Ibis which was lovely, however after all the hassle and exhaustion of the previous night I couldn't go out to explore Bali (my first time there!) Lunch was put on and we were advised to be back at the airport via shuttle buses they had arranged around 7pm.
We all got back to the airport, waited for ages to check in and proceed through immigration, and got to the gate.
Unfortunately the next hiccup was that there was no crew. Air Asia hadn't organised one yet, so despite everyone being at the airport, there was nowhere for us to go.
As the night wore on, we all sat around the gate on the floor, on any seats we could find, there were people sleeping on the ground, people getting angry at the gate crew. We eventually ended up spending the night at the airport, and the new crew didn't arrive until about 10am the next day.
By this time everyone was well and truly over the whole ordeal.
I had phone interviews with media outlets in Australia as they caught wind of our plight, and sent through footage which appeared on the various news' that evening.
We boarded our aircraft about midday, but alas! Another hiccup. Some people had given up on Air Asia and had either sourced their own flights back to Australia, or decided to stay on in Bali for a little extra time. The Indonesian authorities didn't like this, and would not let us leave until everyone who was on the original flight was found and flown back with us. How can you do this when people have already left? Air Asia management negotiated fruitlessly with the authorities for 2 hours, and it seemed we would never leave! Finally they relented and we departed, and eventually arrived back in Australia 2 and a half days later.
Whilst at the time I was pretty over the whole ordeal, I now look back on it as a pretty cool adventure, however not one I would like to replicate in a hurry.
None of us every heard anything from Air Asia after this incident. We were never apologised to, never offered any compensation, which I think is pretty bad.
Needless to say I do think twice about booking any low-cost international fares now. If everything goes well they're great, but it's when things go wrong that they absolutely screw you over.
I reckon I would go to the source and seek compensation from the 2 people that had the temerity to get sick and inconvenience some 300 people.
It happens with the non-budget airlines too. A couple of my friends were on the Qantas flight from Europe via Dubai a couple of New Year Eves ago and a lot of passengers got stranded at Dubai due to plane problems with little ground staff support. Some passengers on later flights, including Alan Joyce, bumped the earlier passengers for seats on the relief plane, which fueled discontent.
I see from my search another incident happened last Christmas.
At least you didn't pick up the sickness from the Chinese lady. Looks like you dodged a bullet…
Your flight has been cancelled due to "operational issues" … one of the favoured responses of these crappy operators. I've never been able to have anyone adequately explain what an operational issue is.
I once bought really cheap tickets to Bali on AirAsia I think it was like ~$300 return (direct - new route) during Easter school holidays.
The route hadn't been confirmed by authorities etc.
I had to pay an additional ~$100 to be able to take the flight once it got approved.
Which to me was two part pricing.. :(How did they ask for the extra money?
What if you didn't pay?
On the manage bookings page it said that there was money outstanding.
We couldn't check in without paying the money. Basically said couldn't fly.
I flew Lion Air from Singapore to Chiang Mai via Bangkok. Flight from Singapore was delayed, meaning that I couldn't make the connecting flight. They forced me to pay extra 700 baht because they do not rebook you if you miss you flight, even though the ticket I bought was from Singapore to Chiang Mai on a single ticket through their website. After some back and forth, they finally said either I pay the 700 baht or I can take my luggage and go. I had no choice but to pay, otherwise I would have been stranded in Bangkok.
So here I am warning you to take a Lion Air flight at your own peril.
I fly Jetstar a lot and this one time my flight was delayed by an hour. It was terrible!
Batik Air is scary though. We hit the ground very hard and some overhead luggage fell out the whole plane was shaking badly through the flight.
Batik Air was so bad I thought they were the budget subsidiary of Lion Air. The interior cabin has a lot of advertising in it. No in-flight entertainment. No refreshments offered.
You know you're on a quality airline when they play an ad for coffee instead of a safety demonstration.
The experience was so shocking and terrible I refuse to fly Batik Air ever again. I thought we were all going to die through the trip.
They wouldn't let us have any electronics on while in the cabin so there was nothing to take my mind off it.
Never again. (Especially considering Lion Air pilots have been known to do meth)
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/why-indonesian-pilots-use…
Batik Air is supposed to be the full service airline of Lion Air. I guess anything associated with Lion Air, avoid?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batik_Air
Malindo is ok though. I have flown with them a few times. Full service and staff seems to not treat you like cattle…
Yeah I'm aware. I was only doing a domestic short haul flight from Jakarta to Yogjakrta. I think luggage was included.
That said, when I decided to fly with Garuda Indonesia the way back. Much more expensive, but the flight was smooth, the hostesses gave peanuts, light refreshments etc.
Only been on Jetstar once and we had a 6 hour delay for a 10 hour flight. They gave us a $10 voucher each for airport food as it was a pay for food flight. Problems with the plane, problems with the weather, change of gate. My main gripe was the communication was pretty sparse. If we knew how long the delay was actually going to be we could’ve stayed longer in duty free or the restaurants, but they kept changing the departure time to stop us wandering too far from the gate. I think the entertainment was also free after that but they didn’t tell us.
Fortunately we didn’t have a connecting flight so it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been.
Scoot has had a couple of shockers through the past couple of years. 22 hrs delays and 24 hours. I have noticed recently many people jumping on budget airline deals, but the thing is when things go wrong, the cost to recover is far too great to risk. That being said, my family had a 24 hour delay on Emirates (!) with an A380 (!). Hotels, dinner and breakfast were provided, but needless to say they were upset.
I once had an hour delay on tiger due to "engine problems". Cut the crap and get us in the air.
Honestly, nothing that I haven't experienced with full service airlines too.
On tripadvisor some people booked Scoot Berlin flights, only to have their flight timings changed and end up having to have a 2 day stopover, and no help or resolution from Scoot. 2 months to get a refund. And obviously the Europe sales might be over so it will cost more on a different carrier. These are the kinds of stories that yes you are not stranded yet, but it costs you time, opportunity cost (higher priced normal flights).
AirAsia - They ran out of the meal I wanted…