Why cheap airlines don’t mean crap service

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Do you see ‘Low Cost Carrier’ and instantly think, ‘Dirty, Cheap, Crap’? Well, we hate to disappoint you but you’re sorely mistaken.

In fact, we’ve done the groundwork, spoken to the experts, and even tried and tested the airlines, to prove just how good an LCC can be.

‘Yeah, yeah, whatever you say’, we can hear you laughing.

Well, we think it’s about time to get stuck in and see some of the reasons you should really be considering the cheaper airlines.

You only pay for what’s important!

Do you have tiny legs, making all that talk about extra legroom pointless? Then you shouldn’t be charged for dead space in front of you.

But maybe you’ve got tiny legs but just die for a tasty, delicious meal. Or perhaps you don’t eat much but really need a few extra kilos of baggage to account for all that shopping.

You get the picture.

Basically, when you’re booking on an LCC, you only pay for what you care about.

Let’s use Scoot as a case study. Now this is an airline you can really dive deep into their fares and fees, and get the full rundown of everything you’re paying for. Check out their Fees Chart here.

Scoot also offers a range of bundle packages to cater to what you care about.

There’s the pure and simple ‘Fly’ option, which comes with your standard 31″ – 34″ legroom on a B787 Dreamliner, 6” of seat recline, and up to 10kg of cabin baggage.

And that’s it. If you want seat selection, meals, in-flight entertainment, priority check-in or checked baggage, you add it on.

Then you’ve got ‘FlyBag’; same as ‘Fly’ but with 20kg of checked baggage.

‘FlyBagEat’ is – yep, you guessed it – same as ‘FlyBag’ but with the addition of a complimentary hot meal combo.

And of course, there’s ‘ScootBiz’, which features all the good stuff mentioned above, plus 38” legroom, wider leather seats with headrests and leg rests, and complimentary in-seat power, seat selection, premium meal and bevvy, and 30kg of checked baggage. Plus you can also stream movies/TV to your device where available.

So whatever LCC you’re flying, it doesn’t necessarily mean shite quality in return. It simply means pay for what you give a shite about.

And for the record, Scoot’s cabin staff rank an average 3/5 on Skytrax, and 4/5 for value for money.

The most recent review gave Scoot, and all the other LCC airlines out there, the kind of praise they go looking for:

“I thought since this is a cheap airline, the service would be horrible. However, it’s not the case at all. In general, a pleasant experience. 9/10.”

Take that, full service airlines.

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Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au

Discover Discovery full service lcc low cost carrier scoot