Air Asia To London

[briley]

OK - the first Air Asia X flight to Luton has gone. Where are all the reports on what the flight was like?

Except KUL reports that the flight left yesterday (11th) at 10am and has now 'landed'. But looking at Luton (I was interested to know if it was on time) there is no Air Asia X arrival.

So where did the plane land?

[theoldgit]

Stansted Airport, not Luton.

[briley]

Believe it or not I am booked to fly with them in May - and I made that elementary mistake!

PS

It landed 1 hr 24 min early!

Edited March 12, 2009 by briley

[Brown1950]

AirAsia X in negotiations to lease another A340 to enable daily flights STN-KUL from July 2009

[Cromarty]

the prices I got for the summer were not especially cheap, maybe 4 grand in total less, but with the added hassle of having to get to KL. That was without luggage and not choosing seats. You know it is going to be a nightmare traveling with them. A 1 1/2 hour journey is a nightmare but bearable as you keep telling yourself you get what you pay for. 12 hours when it isn't really cheaper than other carriers is going to be purgatory.

[Super Hans]

AirAsia X in negotiations to lease another A340 to enable daily flights STN-KUL from July 2009

Does that mean there's sufficient demand for 2 flights a day? I was hoping they'd be empty for a while.

[Super Hans]

Believe it or not I am booked to fly with them in May - and I made that elementary mistake!

PS

It landed 1 hr 24 min early!

Which way?

[KMixon]

I am looking at air asia to fly to saigon from bkk. It has, BY FAR, the cheapest tickets available. (That I have been able to find anyway) Am I going to die on this flight? Are they that scary. Im not too bad of a flyer but like anyone I would appreciate the smoothest flight possible. I could care less about service as long as I get from point A to point B safely. Thanks.

[Super Hans]

Can people that have flown this route explain how easy/quick it is to pick up a connection from KL to BKK after flying in from stansted - it appears that both are from KLCC, but it isn't too clear how quickly it will take to clear immigration/get luggage and check in etc.

[briley]

The Air Asia X flights are currently 5 times a week, but the timing of the flights very from day to day. I assume to ensure the planes are flying most of the time.

Seems they have rented a new plane for the service and are giving more leg room than for their domestic flights - but a report from someone who flew would be nice.

No in flight entertainment apart from watching others.

Meals are 350 baht for 2 meals that sound OK and include a bottle of water. You have to book your seat now for all Air Asia flights.

For me in Chiang Mai flying to KL and then on to the UK the flights almost connect (7 hour lay-over) on two days a week. Can be cheaper than going to BKK and having to take a hotel.

Cost of the flights vary. Look for their offers and it can be cheap. I have paid 1850 Baht CMX to KUL and 5850 Baht KUL to Stansted. Thai air can ask 3,300 CNX to BKK so I've already saved 1,950 Baht on that leg. But I booked when they were offering 20% off all flights so they are more now.

(These fares include taxes, seat booking, meals on the UK flight, one 15 Kg baggage allowance)

I did book with a UK credit card in case they go bust!

My reason for using Air Asia was any BKK - UK flight was asking nearly 40,000 Baht return for a 5 month ticket. From the UK I could get UK - BKK 1 year ticket for about 30,000 Baht or less. Hence I am getting 3 legs for the price of 2 - useful if you are three legged.

[Ricardo]

No in flight entertainment apart from watching others.

Perhaps the inmates might put-on a cabaret, to entertain themselves during the flight, then Air Asia X might charge for use of their microphone, or auction the rights not to let anyone do karaoke ?

[bkkjames]

found this online...

LONDON, March 13 — This week saw the launch of the first budget long-haul flights from Britain to Asia. But what exactly do you get for £99? And, more crucially, is there any legroom? Maxton Walker finds out: Room to stretch out — better than some airlines.

My God, Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary would have a heart attack if he saw this. I’m standing in the check-in queue for Britain’s first long-haul, no-frills flight to Asia, and they are handing out free booze. OK, it’s just a comically small glass of whisky (or sweets for teetotallers), and it’s purely to mark the launch of AirAsia X’s new route from London Stansted to Kuala Lumpur (99 quid one way if you got in early enough) — but still, this is budget travel. We demand to suffer. Thankfully for Tony Fernandes, the businessman behind this new venture, it’s the last freebie we see for the next 13 hours.

As we budget guinea-pigs join the queue at check-in, horror stories swirl about non-reclining seats and the lack of legroom. There’s even a suggestion that if you don’t book a meal in advance, you’ll just have to starve. I haven’t, needless to say, booked a meal in advance.

Yet check-in is brisk and efficient: six desks are open to take our bags and allocate us — surely some mistake — preassigned seats. I am struck by the predominantly young-European-backpacker feel of my fellow travellers; Fernandes says he sees much of his business coming from budget travellers using the Malaysian capital as a hub for other destinations.

Ryan, a 33-year-old electrician standing behind me in the queue, is moving to Melbourne with his girlfriend to start a new life. “I tried to book as soon as I heard about the £99 deal last November,” he says. Sadly he missed out (only about a fifth of travellers, says AirAsia X, will travel for the rock-bottom fare) and had to settle for a — still rather impressive — £171 one-way fare. A tall chap, Ryan admits he is concerned about the legroom.

There is a smattering of older travellers. Middle-aged Phillipe, from France, has gone the whole budget hog by first taking the coach from France to London for this flight, for which he forked out a still reasonable €260 (RM1,196).

As we prepare to board, a young woman tells her friend on the phone that the plane is a 10-year-old Air Canada Airbus A340-300, leased for one year to AirAsia X to test the viability of the route. Intrigued at this inside knowledge, I quiz her. Zoe turns out to be a 35-year-old social worker for Barnado’s who is heading off for a three-week trip around Asia. She did manage to nab one of the coveted £99 tickets — £200 for the return trip — but claims it was a lucky accident of timing. Her informant about our plane is Benny from the Netherlands, a self-confessed airline nerd who ferreted out the information about this flight on some obscure airline-nerd website. He says he booked because Air Canada seats have a good reputation among the air-geek fraternity. A breath of hope amid the mounting dread?

Joanna, 22, and Veronica, 21, from Copenhagen, have two slightly eccentrically paired concerns. “We’re worried the plane will crash, and the seats will be too small,” says Joanna. Not an issue shared by 24-year-old Norhaizi, who is heading home to Malaysia after four years studying accountancy. “My mum tipped me off about it,” she says. “She said Airbuses are better than Boeings.”

Thirtysomething honeymoon couple Alpa and Kamles, meanwhile, have been told that they will be upgraded for the flight as a wedding present. What does that mean, exactly?

“Bigger seats, I think,” says Kamles.

Finally we board, and I’m in for a shock. The legroom is not just OK, it feels rather generous. There are eight seats across the cabin, with two aisles running between the pairs of window seats and a central island of four. Even though the seats are reportedly 15.8 inches wide, rather than the standard 16 inches, and the pitch between the rows of seats (the distance between one point on a seat and the identical point on the seat in front) is 30 inches compared with the usual 32, it doesn’t feel a problem. And yes, contrary to rumour, the seats even recline. Quite a bit.

Sitting next to me are a trio of Spaniards, Carlos, Pedro and Katia, who are planning to bum around Thailand, Laos and Vietnam for a few months. They are also impressed. “The backs of the seats are low,” says Katia. “And the stewardesses are sexy,” says Carlos. “Write that down.” But he would like a seat-back DVD player.

Perhaps what Carlos means is that the cabin crew don’t exude a budget feel: the stewardesses are dressed in sharp red outfits, the stewards in black with red trim. And they don’t seem particularly harassed by their backpacker charges; when I press my call button, I get a pretty swift response every time.

However, I turn down the offer of a £7 comfort kit (blanket, inflatable pillow and eye-cover). This is a budget flight, after all. On the way to the toilet (no charge), I bump into Zoe who, though she has been billeted in a double seat (the flight is only about 90% full), finds herself, to her horror, right next to the toilets.

I also come across Ryan the electrician, who is sitting next to an exit door with no seat in front of him and an obscene amount of legroom. He sheepishly admits he forked out “about 20 quid extra” for the seat after looking at a plan of the plane online. And he acquired a free comfort kit from somewhere! Uber-nerd Benny, meanwhile, is a bit disappointed that he has to wait a couple of hours after take-off to get a (£1) bottle of water.

Before dinner, I sneak up to “XL” class, as it’s known, right at the front of the plane, to check on the upgraded honeymooners Alpa and Kamles, who are already tucking into their food (there’s a choice of Malaysian or European). It has, at first glance, the feel of a first-class lounge. The seats are gigantic and go virtually flat; and the couple look justifiably pleased with their small coup. Until they learn that an upgrade doesn’t absolve them from paying for stuff just like the rest of us — which leads one to wonder quite what the point of the first-class budget option is.

I have to fork out £6 for dinner — a small portion of chicken and potatoes plus a can of lager. Thankfully, the rumours about having to book food in advance are nonsense — although, oddly, the booze is rather discreetly tucked away deep in the trolley. I actually have to ask if they have any.

The Spaniards (high culinary standards) are horrified by the dinner. “It wasn’t hot enough, there was no taste, no bread and I have to cut my chicken with a spoon because there wasn’t a knife,” says Carlos. “And 250ml of wine costs €5. And there’s no desert. And the bottled water isn’t even cold.”

A trifle harsh, perhaps, but the portions are meagre. An hour after dinner, Pedro cracks and forks out another few euros for a Malaysian pot noodle. Then it’s time for the in-flight entertainment — £6. Rather than seat-back screens, the crew hand out portable media players with preloaded films — a decent selection including The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire. There are some takers, but not as many as I would expect.

I buy another couple of bottles of water — two more quid — and doze fitfully, thanks to an overhead light that won’t dim properly (are they trying to force me to buy the comfort pack?). Then it’s breakfast — a quiche that, unsurprisingly, goes down badly with the Spaniards — and we’re in Kuala Lumpur ahead of schedule, to be greeted by a throng of Malaysian women in traditional dress and a bevy of photographers snapping away at the bottom of the plane steps.

There is even some traditional live music on the way to baggage collection, and passport control is a breeze. I know this is the inaugural flight — but the full rock-star treatment? This doesn’t happen with Ryanair.

Even so, electrician Ryan was disappointed with the price and quality of the food, but overall reckoned the flight was great value.

Zoe was still rankled by the toilet thing, but had to confess that, overall, she’d been pleasantly surprised. Even Benny, a man who knows his airlines, appeared to have been won over. And the Spaniards? Well, they were still hung up on the food . . . although plenty of other passengers just brought their own.

So did it feel like a budget flight? No. There was none of that cloying claustrophobia that can leave you gasping for air on a bad short-haul. Even after 13 hours in a relatively crowded part of the plane, I felt pretty relaxed. If passengers really do have less legroom than on standard long-haul flights, it is a convincing illusion to the contrary.

And am I dreading the return flight on Sunday? Well, only because 13-hour flights are always pretty grim. Would I recommend it?

I have only flown long-haul to Asia once before (Lufthansa to Tokyo) and, for my money, this was a better experience. But everything did go very smoothly, perhaps because it was the inaugural flight.

If AirAsia X can keep it up, it is on to something. However, given that the average customer is spending much more than £99, is it really a budget airline at heart? Well, judging by honeymooning Alpa’s experience, yes. “We didn’t have a pen to fill in our immigration form,” she says.

“They sold us one for a quid.” Now that would give Michael O’Leary’s heart a warm glow. — Guardian

[Brown1950]

Pics of the first flight STN-KUL

http://www.persfoto.com/categories.php?cat_id=498

[Briggsy]

The Grauniad comes up trumps once more.

Quite shocked that there's no free water available.

Does anyone know if they still enforce the liquid 100 ml limit in Malaysia? I heard they'd dropped it in the EU.

Re food, it'll be cheese butties in a lunch box for me.

[samui04]

The Grauniad comes up trumps once more.

Quite shocked that there's no free water available.

Does anyone know if they still enforce the liquid 100 ml limit in Malaysia? I heard they'd dropped it in the EU.

Re food, it'll be cheese butties in a lunch box for me.

Mineral water can make airplane explode , the british are sure about that, so unless UK exit UE no mineral water through security.

But you can always buy a 500mil 25cent bottle of water for 2 or 3 euro in the duty free shops.......

[gregchambers]

It is quite good if you only want to buy a one way flight I got 9000 baht KL to London by booking about a month in advance .. I was going to be in KL anyway. In a few days time there is Tunes Hotel opening within walking distance of the KL terminal so could be quite useful if you want a rest after coming from the UK. Flight is on time tonight (I am sitting at the MacD outside the terminal using the free WiFi but no idea if it is going to be good or not. The nasty bit is getting from Standstead to somewhere civilized, I have to go into London Victoria first on the bus (the train service is hopeless, no direct routes anywhere) so I waste at least two hours compared to Heathrow.

[tw25rw]

There's a special service: Stanstead - London Liverpool St.

[theoldgit]

The Stansted Express goes directly into Liverpool Street in London, stopping at Tottenham Hale for the Victoria Line, though the underground is probably not ideal with loads of luggage.

https://www.stanstedexpress.com/index.asp?S...A-267A6A87384E}

National Express run a bus service to various parts of London, this is of course subject to heavy traffic during the rush hours.

http://www.nationalexpress.com/Airport/stansted.cfm

[siam2007]

Can people that have flown this route explain how easy/quick it is to pick up a connection from KL to BKK after flying in from stansted - it appears that both are from KLCC.....

KLCC is the big shopping mall attached to the Petronas Twin Towers in KL downtown.

so far, no aircraft whatsoever has been seen taking off or touching down at the premises of the KLCC

[bkkjames]

Can people that have flown this route explain how easy/quick it is to pick up a connection from KL to BKK after flying in from stansted - it appears that both are from KLCC.....

KLCC is the big shopping mall attached to the Petronas Twin Towers in KL downtown.

so far, no aircraft whatsoever has been seen taking off or touching down at the premises of the KLCC

Great help mate!

Hans, I guess it depends on your arrival time - Air Asia flies to Bangkok daily so check with them about a connection. Failing that you can take Thai or Malaysian Airways.

[samui04]

There's a special service: Stanstead - London Liverpool St.

Ryanair fly out of Stanstead, but if the AirAsia return flight arrive at night no connection, so not usable apart for uk people.

The first leg is still very interesting.

How is the connection from Subang airport (Firefly to Samui) to the main KL?

[DaleBlue]

It is quite good if you only want to buy a one way flight I got 9000 baht KL to London by booking about a month in advance .. I was going to be in KL anyway. In a few days time there is Tunes Hotel opening within walking distance of the KL terminal so could be quite useful if you want a rest after coming from the UK. Flight is on time tonight (I am sitting at the MacD outside the terminal using the free WiFi but no idea if it is going to be good or not. The nasty bit is getting from Standstead to somewhere civilized, I have to go into London Victoria first on the bus (the train service is hopeless, no direct routes anywhere) so I waste at least two hours compared to Heathrow.

The Tune hotel is now open. The WiFi in LCCT is free. Maybe it is my machine, I need to re-boot a couple of time before I get it to work.

[wileycoyote]

Good Posting

[asanee]

There's a special service: Stanstead - London Liverpool St.

How is the connection from Subang airport (Firefly to Samui) to the main KL?

I did this-but with a night stopover in KUl-last week-cmoing in on FIREFLY ex Penang-for the exprenience. Firefly has the old AirAsia rep of ALWAYS being late!

From Subang, now a mess of a tiny small airprot remains of the once KUL main, the choices are as always:

1.taxi-haggle with driver, either al the way=COSTly, or only to KUL sentral-then bus as 2;

2.buses: take Rapid KL bus @ 2MYR-MUST have exact cash!-U81-OPPOsite and some 3/400 mtrs ON from airpt-ask airport worker, NOt taxidriver!-runs ev 15/20 mins direct-mainly highway- to KL sentral-and on to KL-city=Pasar seni, in about 35 mins (going into town @ 16.00-major jams outbound, not inbound. it also passes the bangsar area=the major expat area in KL.

FROM Sentral (the U81 stops at the monorel=have to walk around the blcok, 2 buslines to LCC=the AirAsia lowcost term, @ 8/9 MYR/single, (or 6,50 if you use the skybus on AirAisa prebooked)-and Aerobus-both take some 75 mins and run nonstop-again barring any jams.

so CAN be done in about 2 hrs-if youre lucky with traffic-which in KL can be as horrendous as in BKK.

If you have some spare time; KL-sentral is a brandnew terminal, for trains and also the fast Airportrail (do NOT use that-it goes to main terminal=some 15 kms away around the runway from the LCC!), it also has a decent foodcourt on 2nd floor-a bit hidden-good meals for 5/6 MYR. There are both 5* hotels and several lower graded hotels in this area for night-stops.

My A-A XL to LST was great! bang on time-the incoming from LSN arrived in KUL even some 40 mins early, and this is for the time being an ex AirCanada AB340-good legwidth, but seats are a bit narrow.

I had prepaid food service-which turned out to be 2 boxes of hot food with water and nothing more-paying on board would have been cheaper! Take your remaining MYR=ringgit (meals are 16/each, drinks 4/5) instead.

The main problem I see with this is that its just 1 plane-so if there is any mishap/repair-they whole service goes into mishap-there are no easy replacements. This first week it was all OK and mainly EARLY arrivals!

IN KL/the INTERnational terminal has now opened just for this service and this is a major improvement on former cramped conditions (check-in is still done there-opens 3 hr before)-this is now for Malay domestic only. After all the checks etc now plenty of brand new shops-so you can still buy cheap water/drinks etc for on board-or change money-if you want their food-change maybe 10 EUR/GBP if you dont have any MYR on you.

[Super Hans]

There's a special service: Stanstead - London Liverpool St.

How is the connection from Subang airport (Firefly to Samui) to the main KL?

I did this-but with a night stopover in KUl-last week-cmoing in on FIREFLY ex Penang-for the exprenience. Firefly has the old AirAsia rep of ALWAYS being late!

From Subang, now a mess of a tiny small airprot remains of the once KUL main, the choices are as always:

1.taxi-haggle with driver, either al the way=COSTly, or only to KUL sentral-then bus as 2;

2.buses: take Rapid KL bus @ 2MYR-MUST have exact cash!-U81-OPPOsite and some 3/400 mtrs ON from airpt-ask airport worker, NOt taxidriver!-runs ev 15/20 mins direct-mainly highway- to KL sentral-and on to KL-city=Pasar seni, in about 35 mins (going into town @ 16.00-major jams outbound, not inbound. it also passes the bangsar area=the major expat area in KL.

FROM Sentral (the U81 stops at the monorel=have to walk around the blcok, 2 buslines to LCC=the AirAsia lowcost term, @ 8/9 MYR/single, (or 6,50 if you use the skybus on AirAisa prebooked)-and Aerobus-both take some 75 mins and run nonstop-again barring any jams.

so CAN be done in about 2 hrs-if youre lucky with traffic-which in KL can be as horrendous as in BKK.

If you have some spare time; KL-sentral is a brandnew terminal, for trains and also the fast Airportrail (do NOT use that-it goes to main terminal=some 15 kms away around the runway from the LCC!), it also has a decent foodcourt on 2nd floor-a bit hidden-good meals for 5/6 MYR. There are both 5* hotels and several lower graded hotels in this area for night-stops.

My A-A XL to LST was great! bang on time-the incoming from LSN arrived in KUL even some 40 mins early, and this is for the time being an ex AirCanada AB340-good legwidth, but seats are a bit narrow.

I had prepaid food service-which turned out to be 2 boxes of hot food with water and nothing more-paying on board would have been cheaper! Take your remaining MYR=ringgit (meals are 16/each, drinks 4/5) instead.

The main problem I see with this is that its just 1 plane-so if there is any mishap/repair-they whole service goes into mishap-there are no easy replacements. This first week it was all OK and mainly EARLY arrivals!

IN KL/the INTERnational terminal has now opened just for this service and this is a major improvement on former cramped conditions (check-in is still done there-opens 3 hr before)-this is now for Malay domestic only. After all the checks etc now plenty of brand new shops-so you can still buy cheap water/drinks etc for on board-or change money-if you want their food-change maybe 10 EUR/GBP if you dont have any MYR on you.

Can you clarify which terminals you went through please? My tix say both flights (LST-KL and KL-BKK) go from the LCCT - was that your experience?

[samui04]

How is the connection from Subang airport (Firefly to Samui) to the main KL?

I did this-but with a night stopover in KUl-last week-cmoing in on FIREFLY ex Penang-for the exprenience. Firefly has the old AirAsia rep of ALWAYS being late!

From Subang, ................

The main problem I see with this is that its just 1 plane-so if there is any mishap/repair-they whole service goes into mishap-there are no easy replacements. This first week it was all OK and mainly EARLY arrivals!

thanxs very much for the long info, it seems that the two airport are nor very far...traffic apart.

Subang for Samui is the only choise this year.

Later this fall the flight schedule is changed at the same hours every day so it means they will have another airplane, but as usual if anything goes wrong there is no backup. And unfortunaltely arriving at Stanstead at 23:00 is no use for another connection but i will give them a run for the London/Kl this winter.

One thing very nice I dicovered with Airasia is that they have the cheapest flight out of Thailand, less than 1500b to cambodia, perfect to get a 6 month visa. They will sell a lot of them...

[asanee]

to clarify: Old SBG is about 20 kms No-We of sentral KL and new KLIA some 70 kms south. After all they planned a brand new airport there some time ago, not really ''close by''.As I said-if youre a bit lucky with traffic and connections it can be covered by bus (not counting the initial wait) in 2 hrs flat-both routes run quite frequent-and it even cost LESS for the 2 as 1 ride on BKK's airport bus for just 25 kms.

After writing my 1st impression I have also read on dedicated airline-sites that they are just about to lease another (also not NEW) AB-340-to make it a same time daily schedule. app. this is now aimed at arr LSN 22.00 and dep from there around 24.00/the flight is 14 hrs-so a whole turn eats some 28 hrs (with 2 hrs layover both sides)-hence the current variable timings.

Also: AirAsia MAIN hub is KUL/LCC and from THERE they serve even far more destinations-also many in Indonesia and China-and they all come lower priced as ex BKK-if only becse Malay does not charge that 700 THB airporttax.

AirAisa -like about any lowcost, like EZ or Ryan here in EUR-ONLY sell 15/20% of available seats at the lowest price-and then the price goes up. You do not need to be some economic wonder to realise they wont make any profit with only seats at the very lowest price.

But it is said they are financially VERY sound-on the same level as RYAN-who consistently makes big profits-even with their mnay 1ct all in fares.