July 4, 2006
Best in air
Want to fly from Melbourne to Singapore for less than $250? A rash of cheap fares from new no-frills Asian airlines means soon you will be able to do just that, writes Paul Edwards.
Australians are about to score huge holiday bargains as a long-awaited price war breaks out among Asian budget airlines. Carriers with names that few of us have heard of will soon start courting the Australian market, offering lower fares to some of the world’s most desirable destinations.
If you have time and patience, you will soon be able to use these cut-price airlines not only to get around Asia, but to take you as far as London and other European capitals.
In October, Hong Kong’s Oasis Air will offer one-way flights from Hong Kong to Gatwick for prices that Australians would be happy to see on the Melbourne-Sydney route. The secret is out, despite efforts from some travel agents to keep it under wraps. In the past, they have reasoned that the no-frills airlines offered no commission, so they avoided dealing with them.
“Now the Australian traveller wins,” says Karsten Horne, head of Reho Travel. “There are virtually no commissions available anywhere these days, so the job of a switched-on travel agent is to find the best option for our clients and charge them a fee for the value we add to their booking.”
The new breed of travel agents say for $50 they’ll find you the best available option, book your flights online and, crucially, take responsibility for the booking. “That’s a small price to pay if you are going to risk your cash on a plane with its nose painted like a duck or an airline owned by a brewery,” Horne says.
The cut-price charge is bolstered by one of the most important Asian hubs - glamorous Changi Airport in Singapore. This airline crossroads has recently opened the world’s first budget-only terminal. It is currently used by Tiger Airways (tigerairways.com), a low-cost off-shoot of Singapore Airlines, with flights throughout Asia and an Australian touchdown in Darwin. Many more budget airlines are expected to use the terminal in coming months.
Budget airports and carriers mean savvy travel agents can help you travel from Melbourne to Singapore via Darwin for only $243. For another $30, you could fly to Bangkok with Asia Air, and $69 more will get you to Phuket.
The new Singapore terminal, which can handle 2.7 million passengers a year, is enormously important to the price war, and Kuala Lumpur has responded by planning its own no-frills facility. Passengers will manage without travelators, escalators and airbridges, but they’ll also pay lower airport taxes. The budget concept extends to the terminal’s duty free shops and eating places, which will have 50 per cent lower rentals and consequent price cuts for travellers.
Asia’s first true budget airline, Air Asia (airasia.com), opened in Malaysia in 2002. Since then, it has been joined by more than 30 budget carriers, from Adam Air to Viva Macau. The new companies service a vast area from Pakistan to Japan, with links to other destinations, including Afghanistan, the Middle East and the islands in the Pacific.
How much cheaper are the budget firms? Air Asia frequently advertises fares on its Kuala Lumpur-Bangkok route claiming a 75 per cent saving on Malaysia Airlines’ quotes. The company also launched its Bangkok-Chiang Mai service for the same price as a beer in either city.
Some of the cut-price airlines have strong Australian connections. Virgin Blue, which itself claims to be a budget carrier, has been exploring ways to work with Air Asia, while its own Pacific Blue (flypacificblue.com) is operating strongly in South Pacific destinations including New Zealand, Vanuatu, Tonga, Fiji, Cook Islands and Samoa. Also in the South Pacific, Polynesian Blue (polynesianblue.com) flies from Apia, Samoa, to a number of Australian airports.
Typical of the clutch of Asian money savers is India’s SpiceJet (spicejet.com), which has the declared mission of becoming India’s preferred low-cost airline, delivering the lowest airfares with the highest consumer value. SpiceJet says it intends to make air travel available to an increased number of Indians. With a population approaching 1 billion, it will have no shortage of target customers.
Also based on the subcontinent, Jet Airways (jetairways.com) flies to more than 40 Indian cities and shares frequent flyer points with Lufthansa. Success has come rapidly, and the airline has now moved into the major league, with international flights as far afield as London.
The first sign that the snowball effect of budget airlines might be headed for a correction is Jet Airways’ announcement that it is planning to take over and operate Air Sahara (airsahara.net), which oddly enough doesn’t fly anywhere near the Sahara.
Indian airlines that have rapidly found favour with budget travellers include Kingfisher (flykingfisher.com) and Air Deccan (airdeccan.net). In Thailand, Nok Air (nokair.com) - nok means bird in Thai - started in 2004 with its country’s nationals as its major target. Statistics show that around 8 million Thais are wealthy enough to take flying holidays.
Jetstar Asia (jetstarasia.com) is a Singapore-based partnership between Qantas (49 per cent) and local investors. The line flies to destinations such as Siem Reap (Cambodia), Yangon (Rangoon), Kolkata (Calcutta) - at last count, there were about 12 flights, including to Bangalore, Asia’s fastest-growing city.
Orient Thai is the mother airline of budget offspring One-Two-Go (fly12go.com), flying from Bangkok to South Korea and China together with domestic ports. It claims to be Asia’s only low-cost airline to offer a one-price policy for all its fares to all destinations. It breaks the common budget rule by offering free onboard snacks and soft drinks.
Thailand has been a buttress of the budget airline movement, and the state-controlled Thai Airways International (thaiairways.com) has been forced to cut its own domestic fares to compete with the newcomers. Other operators flying in and around Thailand include Phuket Air (phuketairlines.com), PB Air (pbair.com) and Bangkok Airways (bangkokair.com) - a full service operation with a focus on holiday travel. Yet another Thai entrant is Thai Sky Airlines (thaiskyairlines.com), which operates cut-price flights to China and Taiwan.
Not all newcomers have been successful. One Thai casualty has been Air Andaman, which ceased operations after the 2004 tsunami, citing a severe passenger downturn. Mighty Singapore Airlines has been feeling the pinch on local routes from budget competitors ValuAir (valuair.com.sg), a member of the Jetstar family, and an Indonesian player, Lion Air (lionair.co.id), which regularly undercuts the Singapore giant by 50 per cent.
An oddity is the grandly named Myanmar Airways International (maiair.com), which in truth is the smallest in Asia. With winning honesty, the line’s website states: “We operate a modern all-Boeing fleet that includes two MD82 aircraft.” That’s it. But those two planes manage to squeeze in 23 flights a week and the airline claims to undercut competitors by 15-20 per cent.
The Hong Kong region is another hub that has seized on the budget airline concept. Viva Macau (viva-macau.com) says it will open a new gateway for the world to the 60 million people who live in the Pearl River delta. Its flight operations spread as far as Rome, Hamburg and Tokyo.
In nearby Hong Kong, services to Guangzhou and Hang Zhou have been opened by Hong Kong Express (hongkongexpress.com). Europe and the US will be covered by Hong Kong Oasis Airlines (oasis-air.com), so new it has not yet had its maiden flight. This carrier is scheduled to begin operations in September and says it will fly Hong Kong-London direct for the same fare as lines that stop once or twice. It also says it will offer some fares on this route from an astounding $HK1000 or $A175.
Also flying out of Hong Kong, CR Airways (crairways.com) flies to several regional Chinese cities, Siem Reap and Laoag in the Philippines. It states its mission as discovering the undiscovered Asia.
Some of Indonesia’s smaller airlines have had a habit of fading in and out of operations. Discount carrier Awair (www.awairlines.com), which reappeared in 2004, now seems to have disappeared - click on Awair’s web address and you’ll be put through to Air Asia. Pelita Air (pelita-air.com) offers good-value flights around Indonesia’s smaller centres, including idyllic islands such as Flores.
Most of these budget carriers offer online booking services and have plenty of information about the planes and their crews. If you want to double-check their safety record, one suggestion is to visit airlinequality.com/index.htm.
WHAT THE TRAVELLERS SAY
Reho Travel clients have been among the first to comment on the new breed of no-frills Asian airlines:
Tiger Air - “Absolutely fantastic service, newest planes, great air fares.”
Jet Airways - “Good-looking flight attendants, great service.”
Nok Air - “Looked like a cartoon strip on the outside, new plane, cheap fares.”
Agency head Karsten Horne fl ew two of India’s newest carriers earlier this year when he had to cut short a family holiday in the Himalayas. “Our fi rst fl ight was with Air Deccan from Dehra Dun to Delhi. Until recently, Dehra Dun was just a military airport, now the daily fl ight has opened up access to a remote part of India. The brand new propeller aircraft was still an oddity, with half a nearby village turning up to watch the take-off, but the service was excellent and the crew tried very hard.”
Our next fl ight from Delhi to Mumbai, India’s most competitive route, was with Kingfi sher Airlines. Despite being less than a year old, I have declared Kingfi sher the best domestic carrier in the world! I was surprised at the quality of every aspect, from the check-in through to the amenities kit. The crew were amazing, the meal was excellent, we had seat-back screens and even the magazine was a great read. It is a long time since I have seen a brand represented so brilliantly and consistently.”
SAFETY
If the so-called law of averages was to apply to flight, it would be safe to assume that more budget airlines mean more landings and take-offs, and therefore potentially more dangerous incidents.
Although the surge in budget Asian airlines is only two years old, there has not been a noticeable increase in disasters or reported near-misses. However, the potential for catastrophe makes low budget travel a matter of concern for international travellers, who question whether cut-price operators are cutting their costs on maintenance and crew training.
Locals appear to be showing no such concerns and many budget airlines are already showing greater pro rata profits than conventional international lines. This prompts the question: who, then, can best afford maintenance?