Flight: AirAsia X D7 212
From: Kuala Lumpur (KUL) To: Melbourne (MEL)
I flew with AirAsia X from Kuala Lumpur to Melbourne. When I’m flying back to Melbourne from Southeast Asia I usually compare flights on Skyscanner from different starting points. I was flying from Saigon initially but I also looked at other hub cities, which would give me an excuse to visit that city. In this case the flight from KL was by far the cheapest option, so I flew to Penang first and then made my way to KL.
I especially picked flight D7 212 because it is a day time flight. There is another AirAsia flight that goes overnight, and I try and avoid overnight flights whenever possible.
My first flight with AirAsia X was in 2009. I have flown with AirAsia X from KL to Melbourne three times before this flight, with the last time being in 2011. And this might be my last flight with AirAsia X to MEL airport, as they will be moving to Avalon Airport (AVV) by the end of this year. Avalon is the second airport of Melbourne which is still trying establish itself, so having AirAsia is a big win.
The flight departs at 10.10 and arrives at 21.00 with a scheduled flying time of 8H, 50M. It’s the ideal flying time for me, as it is not too early in the morning, and you arrive in Melbourne and basically go to bed like it was a normal day.
I didn’t check in online as I didn’t want to risk being assigned a middle seat. I got to the airport early, which is a good idea as the klia2 terminal is huge.
Checking in at KUL there are self-service kiosks, so I wasn’t going to have a choice in seat selection anyway.
The machine didn’t seem to like my passport (even though it is new) so no self-check-in for me.
I wnet to the bag-drop queue and they checked me in from there. I was able to get my coveted isle seat.
KLIA 2 is the home base of AirAsia. It’s a massive terminal for a massive airline, and if you are in the terminal on the other side of the airbridge you will need to allow time to walk there. I wouldn’t check in an hour before your flight departs.
The flight departed on time so no worries for a late arrival into Melbourne.
AirAsiaX is the same airline as AirAsia, they just use this brand for flights that operate the long-haul routes with the A330 aircraft.
The seats in economy are in a 3-3-3 configuration. For comparison Singapore Airlines configure their A330 aircraft in 2-4-2, so there is one less seat per row.
Upon taking my seat I saw an advertisement trying to lure me up to the front end of the plane. If it was the night flight I might have been tempted, but for the day flight I was happy to sit upright. There is no onboard entertainment units on this flight, so come prepared. In my case I had my Kindle fully charged, and my new laptop now has 8 hours of battery time, so I was looking forward to the day of flying ahead of me.
Travel 360 – the inflight magazine of AirAsia.
Always peruse the route map for future travel inspiration.
So there is no inbuilt inflight entertainment, but you can rent tablets to watch movies and TV shows. This can be prebooked when booking your flight.
AirAsia don’t offer a free meal service either, so you can also pre-book that at the time of booking.
I didn’t remember if I booked a meal so I was relieved to see I had thought ahead knowing that I wouldn’t be able to subsist on snacks for over 8 hours.
If you didn’t book ahead you can order onboard as well.
Meals are reasonably priced, with hot meals going for 20 MYR ($5.12 USD).
A coffee or soft drink is 6 MYR ($1.54 USD). It sucks though that you have to buy water on a long haul flight. I think that should be free seeing it’s a basic necessity. I came prepared and refilled my water bottle at the only free water fountain I could find at KUL.
An immigration landing card is provided for arrival into Australia.
Overall this was a good flight option for getting to Melbourne from Kuala Lumpur. AirAsia also offer a Fly-Thru service, so you can fly from anywhere in the AirAsia network to KL and then onwards.
