Flight: AirAsiaX D7 2723
Date: 13 March 2009
From: Melbourne (MEL)
To: Kuala Lumpur LCCT (KUL)

AirAsia X is the long haul brand of Malaysian low cost airline AirAsia. They fly from Kuala Lumpur to the Gold Coast, Perth and Melbourne. They also fly to London Stansted, making it the first low cost airline to fly the whole length of the kangaroo route.

I was curious to fly this relatively short sector to see if I could handle flying a whole day to London on a low cost airline. Would the low fares on offer (up to half the price of a full service airline) offset the lack of frills you would usually get on a regular Australia to UK flight.

[MEL - KUL Air Show]

The first thing I noticed when entering the plane was the size of the seats. The seats are noticably slimmer. The cabin of the Airbus A330 is arranged in 3-3-3 format. Qantas, for example, use a 2-4-2 seat configuration on their A330 aircraft. AirAsiaX have a nine seat row compared to an eight seat row. That means each seat had to give up 1/8th of width to accommodate the extra seat. I noticed that lost 1/8th when I sat in the seat.

[AirAsia X seat backs]

As a low cost airline the pricing is a la carte style, so you buy a cheap seat and pay for any extras you fancy. You can pre-order extras when you are booking your ticket or purchase items onboard.

[AirAsia X Water]

Food and beverages are available for sale (there is no free water), as well as blanket and pillow packs and a video entertainment pass. The pass gives you access to the inflight entertainment, consisting of movies, tv shows, music and games.

[AirAsia X Food Prices]

As I was flying to see how cheap I could get the ticket, I ordered none of the optional extras. I bought my ticket when flights to Melbourne first went on sale at headline grabbing prices. The only optional extra I purchased was checked luggage. This was my return ticket breakdown:

Flight
Ticket 78.00 AUD
Surcharges, fees and taxes 320.00 AUD

Sub total 398.00 AUD

Services and Fees
Supersize regular (up to 15kg) 14.00 AUD

Total Amount 412.00 AUD

My total ticket was 412 AUD for two 7.5 hour flights. Normally flights from Melbourne to KL would run at about 1000 AUD, so this was a bargain price.

The flight was overnight and I usually can’t sleep on planes, so it was pretty boring without movies. Other than that the flight was fine. The main thing is I’m now in Southeast Asia with an extra $500 dollars in my pocket from the savings on the flight. This is what I will remember long after I have forgotten the details of the flight.

So would I fly from Melbourne to London with AirAsia X? It depends mainly on the price and on how badly I wanted to go to the UK/Europe. If I was to save $1000 on a ticket then I would probably do it. Long haul flights are generally mind numbingly tedious anyway and I can’t sleep in economy seats (not that I’ve ever flown up the front) but I would buy the entertainment access as it would be too hard without the distractions of watching movies.

If it was only a couple of hundred dollars difference between AirAsia X and a full service airline then I would take the latter.