Tiger Airways, not recommended

Saturday, 1 Sep 2007 | Journal

Found myself at the airport again this morning. It was about 24 hours since I arrived back from Delhi and I’m now heading towards Singapore for a few days. I booked a ticket on Tiger Airways, one of those low-cost airlines here in the region. First time. Last time.

Upon check-in I requested, as I always do, a seat with some extra space for my legs. Either exit or bulkhead, whatever, I just need somewhere to put my knees. “Sorry Sir, all full, I cannot give you”. Ok, well, my own damn fault because I didn’t show up early enough. These things happen. (What sucks more is that when you do go to the airport on time, you do get assigned an exit seat, you happily spend those hours at the airport and then it turns out not to be an exit seat - happened to me on the flight last night). Anyway, a rather rude check-in staff was the first indication.

Then I got to the gate, boarded the plane and …. damn, how much seats can you cramp into one plane. I know I’m not ‘Asian size’, but this is ridiculous. I simply could not sit in the chair. I had to sit sideways but the armrest in the middle had to be moved down as well. Basically, the lovely ladies of Tiger forced me to do circus acts. As soon as the ‘fasten seatbelts sign’ had been switched off, I shoot to the first row. Because guess what, only a handfull of seats on the entire plane were taken. The exit rows were empty and the first row was empty. What the hell!

So I sit down, happy as a boyscout on summercamp, comfortable seat for the 2.5 hour flight! Great. What sandwich do I want? Um, I don’t know, I’ll have this one. Oh I have to pay? Thats okay, forget it. I have a sandwich right here, I was planning to eat that before boarding but I ran out of time due to the immigration holdup. What do you mean I can’t eat it, why not? Excuse me, because its “not fair to the other passengers”? You mean its not fair because you wont make any commission, right? I don’t have an issue with having to pay for food onboard an airplane. I do have an issue with not being allowed to eat my own food. But whatever, its a budget airline and a 2.5 hour flight. I’ll have a coke. And I’ll pay USD 2 for that.

I sort of wanted to ask if it was okay for me to use my laptop, as it might not be fair to the other passengers that I have one and they dont. But I decided not to act like a disgruntled kid and just be quiet. I did ask for a pillow, which makes working a bit more comfortable. They didn’t have them.

So, Tiger Airways? Not recommended. I’m happy I’ll fly back on another airline. My previous experience with AirAsia was bad too, but mostly due to the other passengers and not the staff itself. I paid a bit extra for priority boarding on the return flight, AirAsia does not do assigned seating so being (one of the) first on board will give me a better chance of a good seat. Ah, the perils of being a tall frequent traveller, am I boring you?