Scoot Air Dreamliner

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So May was the first time I used Scoot Air. To my surprise, they had the Dreamliner 787 on the Singapore to Bangkok route. What a bonus this was....I was expecting the airline to be using an old 777 leased from their associates SQ.

When purchasing the tickets, I decided to use Scootbiz, partly because after taking into account luggage and in-flight meal, the price was not that much different. This price difference was only about $20 SGD per ticket each way so I figured why not in this case.

Ok so here goes, my Scootbiz experience started off very well with priority check in and boarding. Only downside is they don't do priority baggage reclaim. Didn't matter in Bangkok though as the immigration queue took a long time and by the time we got out, the suitcases were already on the belt waiting to be collected.

So on board, the seats were based at the front of the cabin in a 2-3-2 layout. We took row 5 seats A and C. Each seat has your designated power socket which was very good for charging phones etc.

The seat did have a decent recline and a good footrest. Considering the price we paid, there is definitely no complaints considering it is a budget airline.

To compare the seat, business class is not what I would call it. It's more of a premium economy seat in terms of space but with a less comfortable seat than economy on a full service carrier. Premium Economy would be better than this so I would class this as an inbetween economy and premium economy on the likes of British Airways.

Food however was not great. I had the creamy pasta and my wife had the tomato pasta. Both wasn't nice so on our return journey we did ask if this could be changed. Unfortunately this was declined.

A nice surprise was the window blinds. There wasn't any. Instead you press the button and the windows either get dark via a tint function or get brighter enabling you to see outside clearly.

There was some sad news however. As this was a new aircraft, the inflight entertainment that was supposed to be part of our ticket was not available. The Gogo movie entertainment was not yet fitted to the aircraft. Nevermind, 2 hours was fine without a movie.

I would most likely use this again for short haul route, but would only use it for long haul if I had no other feasible option. Choice out of long haul using Scootbiz or SQ economy from Singapore to Tokyo would be really hard to choose if the economy seat was only a little bit more expensive than the Scootbiz.

Unfortunately our return leg was not the same as the outbound. The outbound got us to our destination over 30 mins early, sadly the return was over 3 and half hours delayed. This was due to a faulty craft earlier in the day in Australia which meant our original plane was used for the different journey. We ended up having to wait for the aircraft to come collect us later in the night.

My guess is this.....if you are 4 hours delayed, Scoot Air gives every passenger a $50 voucher as a token of goodwill. By switching our aircraft to accommodate the Australian flight, this meant only those passengers on the original faulty flight in Australia would require compensating.

This would allow the original plane more time to get to Singapore and then be used to go to Bangkok instead of also causing more than 4 hour delay for those passengers waiting to go to Australia. In both cases of the Bangkok and Singapore destination (from Bangkok), the switch enabled both flights to reach destination within the time frame before vouchers were given.

Again this was my guess only, but if I am right, I would say this is an excellent management decision albeit I was one of those sadly effected. However I was able to stay in Bangkok a few hours extra due to the early notification. :D

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