6000km on Tiger Airways

When the Airbus A320-200 took off from the tarmac of Melbourne International Airport, I didn't have too high an expectation of my 6000km journey on a low cost carrier. After all, I paid only 70% of what I usually pay for a return ticket. The flight was only meant to bring me home, so comfort was never the top agenda.

As the Chinese saying goes, a thousand-mile journey begins with the first step (千里之行，始于足下). True to the words - my first journey was to walk some two hundred metres on the tarmac and climb a flight of stairs to get in the plane. When I finally got in the plane, the seat didn't provide much comfort. It was narrow and I could barely straighten my leg. Also not helping was the air-conditioning vent which could only produce some feeble wind, and it's not even cold.

After some routine aircraft safety announcement (which I listened to more attentively than usual), the airplane finally taxied to the runway and with a pause, started to accelerate along the straight path. Despite not being a religious person, I started wishing for my safety. I have an incurable phobia of flying, among many other things. As the plane's nose tilted skywards, my worst fear came true. The plane started to vibrate vigorously for a few seconds. It's the same vibration you get when you used the wrong gear for your car. I thought the plane was going to break apart. Luckily the vibration faded and the plane continued to gain altitude uneventfully.

Flying on a low-cost airway is a bare-bone transportation mode. All you have is a seat that allows an inclination of half an inch, and nothing else. There's no free meal, no free water, no warm towel, no blanket, no pillow, no movies, no games and no radio. Oh actually I did get something free for the journey - two over-enthusiastic persons who chit-chatted from the take-off till the landing - with a volume fighting to outdo the jet engine noise. Needless to say, they won. There were also four free air hostess on board, and they looked rather funny. They were clad in jeans and a plain yellow T-shirt the sort you usually see in Pasar Malam, bearing the feline logo of Tiger Airways. They also had this stylish "belt" which was actually a tiger-striped cloth tied around the waist. Their casual look was amusing.

After a struggle with the megaphoney talk, dry eyes and mouth due to lack of water (yes yours truly is a cheapskate who would not buy drinks on a low-cost airplane when his own ran out) and the lack of entertainment, the plane finally began a slow descent as it approached Darwin (a city in North Australia). The elapsed four hours seemed like an eternity, and by then my body started to protest against the ordeal I put it through. While the scarce streetlight of Darwin came into view, the A320 glided into the runway gracefully. I was pleasantly surprised when the landing gear touched the ground - it's the smoothest landing I had ever had, compared to even the larger 747s. The braking was perfect, and I could feel the plane slow down safely on the runway within seconds. It's very unlike most of the landings I had where the plane felt like an out-of-control dogsled where the driver struggles to hold the dogs back. Instead, the plane's braking was like a sports car with a set of spanking new brakes. Impressive stuff.

I went down to the airport, and to my dissatisfaction, I had to go through the baggage retrieval and check-in process. It's ridiculously cumbersome, compared to most transit flights which would usually arrange an automatic transfer of baggages to the onward flight. Feel free to add in the fact that it's 1 am Melbourne time when I lined up for the check-in counter. After the whole shebang, I finally got to the departure gate where I got some replenishment. I could only buy a couple pack of chips from the vending machine to cater to my grumbling stomach. Okay it's not really their fault, but the only cafe there was selling sandwiches for six dollar each, and I am not really into sandwich.

When it was time, I boarded another Airbus A320-200. This time the plane smelt like an old carpet, the seats looked like it hadn't been refurbished for five years, and no personal drinks were allowed on board (due to the new flight regulations). Off I went for another four-hour flight to Singapore, with an ETA of 3.40am local time. I started feeling sleepy, if that was any consolation.


p/s: To be fair, it's true that "you get what you paid for". It's only that comfort wise, it fell short of my already low expectation. I would recommend anyone to take low-cost airways for their travel on the merit of its price alone, but if you are not too good at, among other things, tolerating sub-optimal condition for more than four hours on a narrow seat, I urge you to think twice.

p/p/s: I forgot to mention that the same vibration during take-off and the smooth landing happened for the second leg of the flight too. I guess it might be something about the A320.

Image Credit: Airbus.com