Photo by Auswandern

Air Asia flights

Our essential guide to cheap Air Asia flights provides an in-depth look at the carrier. This guide covers some general information about the airline and the routes it flies to. It also looks at how to get the cheapest possible flights, including some tricks we learned to always find the best deal. Finally, we show an unbiased view of the service onboard Air Asia flights, including seat pitch and in flight service.

About Air Asia

Air Asia is actually a collection of different airlines: AirAsia Berhad (Malaysia), Thai AirAsia, Indonesia AirAsia and AirAsiaX (Long Haul). The airlines operate under the banner of Air Asia and the service and experience are almost identical, except on long haul flights under Air Asia X. The group have a number of hub airports across South East Asia, the main ones being – Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Singapore, Kota Kinabalu and Jakarta. Air Asia also operates an extensive number of flights from other airports such as Phuket, Penang and Bali.

This results in a larger number of point-to-point flights being available. Traditional airlines often require stopovers or transit through a hub airport, but Air Asia has an extremely large number of direct point-to-point flights. This can be very convenient for many people.

You can catch Air Asia flights from virtually any large city in South Easy Asia. It is worth noting that on routes with a lot of competition, prices are significantly lower. However, for convenience there are also direct routes from certain smaller cities or tourist destinations – Penang to Macau is a good example of such a route.

Air Asia X is the long haul arm of Air Asia. All Air Asia X flights can be booked through the regular website but there are some major in differences in onboard service which is covered towards the end of this guide. All flights to/from Australia, Tehran, Europe, Northern China and Taiwan are operated by Air Asia X. Importantly, Air Asia X is not always cheaper than their competitors on these routes. A good example is London – Kuala Lumpur, where Emirates and Ethiad regularly undercut the average Air Asia rates. This does mean a stopover in the Middle East however. Bear in mind that you will need to purchase some food on such long flights so factor in this when making budgeting decisions. More information on Air Asia X service is discussed later in this guide.

Cheap Air Asia Flight Secrets

AirAsia.com

The main place to make your booking is on the airline’s website. Note that you are charged in the currency where your flight departs so if you book 2x one-way tickets then will be charged in two separate currencies. Some credit cards have additional fees for bookings in a foreign currency. The website is pretty self explanatory, and functions just like any other airline website.

SkyScanner tool

SkyScanner is a flight comparison website which compares prices of many different airlines. One special feature is that it can seat for a specific route over a period of a whole month. If you want to travel from Kuala Lumpur – London in March, then simply enter this information in the simple booking screen and it searches the entire month. This way you can accurately see every Air Asia prices over the whole month. This is a great tip to find the cheaper flights. Beware that some airlines, most notably Tiger Airways, appear to be much cheaper on this website. However the prices quoted do not include tax. Air Asia prices do include tax.

Advance Booking

Advance booking is necessary to secure super low prices. If you book over 3 months in advance then flights are usually dirt cheap – the exception being Air Asia X flights to Europe / Australia. It is never worth holding off booking in case of a sale. To be honest, flights are so cheap if you book them in advance that is often best to book them even if your plans are unconfirmed. Prices can rise as much as ten times as you move closer to the departure date. If you do need to make a change to your flight, it is usually cheaper to simply purchase a new ticket rather than pay the change fees as well as the difference in price.

Sales

Air Asia sales are notoriously good value, but only for a select few. A recent sale offered many seats for free (just pay tax). It was easy to get these seats for less popular routes, but the more popular routes sold out of the small number of free seats really quickly. Over a three day period, Air Asia’s website became inundated with people looking for a good deal. It ground to a halt for most of the day. While on paper discount sales are great value, in practice it is less true. They often require you to book flights over 6 months in advance and there are only ever a few seats available for the very cheap advertised prices. Other seats are still cheap, but much more costly than the loss leading prices quoted in the various marketing material.

Sales are always advertised well in advance, usually on the Air Asia website itself. In future, a good trick to get through to the site when the sale starts is to use the mobile site: http://m.airasia.com – this section of the site usually works even when the main website does not. Some popup blockers cover up banner ads on the Air Asia site, so if you are looking for the next sale be sure to make sure that your browser is not hiding the advertisement from you.

Competition / Routings

Most traditional carriers have started to adapt and compete with Air Asia. Malaysian Airlines now offers similar prices on many domestic and short-haul flights. Many new budget airlines have sprung up in the region in recent years as well. The popular Singapore – Kuala Lumpur route is served by Tiger Airways, in addition to Air Asia, Malaysian Airlines and Singapore Airlines. This results in some exceptionally cheap fares on this route – often flights are free and you just pay the tax.

There are a large number of budget airlines in South East Asia now, so be sure to check on various sources to ensure Air Asia flights really are the cheapest. This is particularly noticeable on domestic flights in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia where a number of competing airlines operate.

There are also a few instances where two flights are significantly cheaper than one. There are multiple reasons for this, including competition and taxes. Take the example of Kuala Lumpur – Manila. When booking in advance, it is often cheaper to purchase a Kuala Lumpur – Kota Kinabalu flight then purchase a separate Kota Kinabalu – Manila flight.

If your flight is from Singapore, be aware that the Malaysian city of Johor Bharu lies on the border with Singapore. It may be significantly cheaper to cross the border by car/bus then take a flight out of Johor Bharu. This also means that you pay the much lower Malaysian departure tax rates.

Air Asia Frequent Flyer Program

Officially Air Asia has no Frequent Flyer Program and has previously stated that as a budget airline it does not intend to introduce one. Most of Air Asia’s competitors do have their own frequent flyer program. This guide shows you how to earn up to 200,000 frequent flyer miles with Air Asia’s competitors – without stepping on a plane! Redeeming miles for flights is effectively free and therefore cheaper than any seat Air Asia can offer you.

Hidden Fees

Like many budget airlines, Air Asia does have some hidden fees. Their website proudly proclaims that they have “No Admin” fee and that the price you see includes tax and is the price you pay. This is not strictly true as in November 2009 they introduced what they called a credit/debit card “convenience fee” of 5MYR per passenger per on-way trip. For a family of 4 making a return journey, this fee would be 40MYR or around US$12. It is a blatant rip off charge, but there is little you can do about it unless you have a Malaysian bank account and can set up an online direct debit payment.

If you wish to bring carry on luggage, this costs extra too. It varies depending on which country you are originating from, but expect to pay around 10MYR for up to 15kg allowance. This fee dramatically rises by over 450% if you move up to 20kg so try to ensure each bag you carry has less than 15kg in it.

When you make a booking, after you enter your details, the website tries to add on additional travel insurance. Make sure you cancel this as it is very expensive and there are much cheaper annual options out there. One thing to note is that the “cancel” and “ok” buttons are often shifted around which can be confusing. Be sure to read the pop up boxes to ensure you really are cancelling the insurance.

In South East Asia, a number of airports have taxes or “departure fees” that are payable at the airport prior to departure. This is applicable to all airlines, but it is worth bearing in mind if you intend to travel to these places. Cambodia charges all passengers a fee of US$10. In Vietnam, most tax fees are now included in ticket prices. Check http://www.wikitravel.org for the latest information.

Some airports are a lot further out of town that you might expect. If you fly to Manila with Air Asia, you will actually find yourself in another city called Clarke which is about an hour drive away. Always check which airport you are arriving into before flying. Air Asia uses London Stanstead which is further out of town and in Brisbane, Gold Coast airport is used which is the secondary airport in the area. This seems to be a bigger problem for Air Asia X, where the route map advertises Hangzhou airport as being close to Shanghai. In actual fact this can take well over 2 hours on a fast train so be careful.

In Kuala Lumpur, Air Asia uses the Low Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT) which uses the same runway as KLIA (the main airport). However, the terminal is on the other side of the runway and nobody has bothered to connect them. Different busses and transports options exist for each terminal so check before you travel to ensure you have the correct route planned. The opposite is true in places like Singapore where Air Asia uses the main terminal and not the budget terminal.

The experience

This section looks are the experience of an Air Asia flight and what it is really like. Note that Air Asia X has quite a few major differences and these are covered in the Air Asia X section at the end.

Check-In

You are allowed to check in online and print your own boarding pass. In reality this has little benefit unless you are travelling only with hand luggage. You still have to queue up and drop your bags off as normal. There is always a line but it does tend to move quickly. Seats are assigned “randomly” but at check in you can often ask for a specific kind of seat such as an aisle seat or a window seat if you prefer. Staff will always tell you that it is random assignments, but be persistent and they will always change your seat for you. All Air Asia check in staff can change seats easily.

I have often stated that I’d like an aisle seat because I am tall and the seats are small. A high proportion of the time, I have been given exit row seats when I’ve asked this. Usually, customers must pay extra for these seats with more room – on Air Asia flights they are called “hot seats”.

A good precaution to take is to make sure your mobile phone (cell phone/hand phone) number entered correctly when booking your flight. Air Asia are very good at sending you text messages to let you know about delays or cancellations. Beware that if you check the Air Asia website, often it will not have the updated time – the text messages are correct though.

Legroom

Most Air Asia flights are operated by Airbus A320 aircraft. There are also a number of Boeing 737 aircraft in the fleet at present. The Air Asia seat pitch for regular seats is 29 inches – which is standard for budget airlines but a few inches below regular carriers. This allows five extra rows of seats to be fitted in each plane, compared to regular carriers with a 31 inch seat pitch. The seats are generally quite comfortable as many of the aircraft are only a few years old.

I am 6 feet 4 inches tall and have no problem sitting comfortably in an Air Asia seat for a few hours. There is a noticeable difference in sitting in an extra legroom or exit row seat. For short flight I don’t find it worth the additional 25MYR fee, especially given how often I get to sit here for free anyway – by asking at check in.

Service

Air Asia is a budget airline and as such all additional services costs extra. Food and drink are available for purchase throughout the flight. The cabin crew make one round with the trolley, but will happily serve you again if you ask. Food is expensive for Asia, but cheap compared to European budget airlines. A regular can of Pepsi costs 5MYR and a meal costs 9MYR (7MYR for sandwich / panini). The food is not very good quality considering the cost. The satay offered on many flights departing Kuala Lumpur is very good, as it is from the same catering company Malaysian Airlines use (and serve it to their First/Business Class passengers). There is even a big discount for booking in advance online.

Officially, Air Asia flights have a no external food/drink policy on board. I’m not sure this is legally enforceable in some countries, but the crew do not seem to enforce this practice strictly. Many people bring on bottles of water and if you take small snacks such as sandwiches then it shouldn’t be a problem. I dare say that some cabin crew will be super strict about it, but the vast majority are ok – so use at least some discretion.

Be sure to take along a pen, or ask your seat neighbour to borrow one. If you need to fill out a landing card/immigration form, Air Asia do not provide free pens on their flights – of course you can buy one, or just wait till you land and fill out that card next to the immigration line.

Air Asia X

When flying long haul, things a little different. Large A330 and A340 aircraft are used. The Air Asia X seat pitch is 31 inches but seats are slightly narrower than on short haul flights. See my other article for a full guide to Air Asia X Seats. Another great thing about Air Asia X is the XL class, which is similar to Premium Economy on many airlines. Be sure to check out my guide to Air Asia X XL seats as well.

In flight entertainment is offered in the form of personal TVs with video on demand. On A340 aircraft, DVD players are available for rent. It is best to ask for one as soon as you board the plane (before takeoff) as these run out very quickly. Programming on the personal TVs is very good, with a wide range of new and classic movies, TV shows and kids programs available in many languages. This costs 30MYR per screen, though two people could potentially share one screen.

Air Asia X seem to love turning their Air Conditioning up really high and as such it gets very cold on their flights. The solution is to purchase a comfort kit, consisting of a blanket, an eye mask and a neck pillow. This only costs 25MYR for the whole kit which is very good value, but still an added cost which most other airlines provide for free.




Have your own view about Air Asia flights? Be sure to post a comment below and we will add any useful information to the guide.