AirAsia to Langkawi LCC Meals while Landing!

[Iluvcruising2]

We fly AirAsia from Singapore to Langkawi, Malaysia. AirAsia is a very large budget carrier, owned by Tony Fernandez of Malaysia. It has been a stunning success, however, it was hit by a crash last year when AirAsia Flight 8501 crashed, presumably due to bad weather and some pilot error.

 

Anyway, putting that aside, we still fly with AirAsia. The flight was from Singapore Changi Terminal 1. Check in was smooth and we got into the restricted area of Terminal 1 very quickly. I explored the terminal and found an outdoor cactus garden that I didn't know existed. This is a video of the place, which is near the Burger King.

[YOUTUBE]T1TtCl2vobo[/YOUTUBE]

 

Here are some pictures. The cactus garden was outdoors.

 

The pub in the garden. Didn't see anybody drinking, but this was in the morning. Probably more people in the evening.

 

This cactus was labelled the 'rose cactus'.

 

This was the smoking area. The cactus garden was divided into smoking and non-smoking areas.

 

Back to the pub area, you could sit on these high chairs and get a view of the gates. Several Emirates aircraft.

 

Alright, now let's move on to the exciting flight. I've flown with AirAsia to Bangkok before, but this is the first time I'm flying on AirAsia to a destination in Malaysia. When I got to the gate, the plane hadn't arrived.

[Iluvcruising2]

The plane was slightly late in arrival, but the disembarkation of passengers and our embarkation was relatively quick. In this video, I show you part 1 of the flight. We had to taxi for a very long while before take-off. During the taxi, I saw the upcoming Terminal 4, which is about 70% completed. I think Terminal 4 will open in 2017. Once we took off, I could see a large piece of land being cleared. This should be the site of the future Terminal 5. Here is the video.

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Some still photos. From my seat, I could see the ground crew loading hold luggage.

 

Airasia imprint on the seat in front of me. They have black leather seats.

 

The menu is very attractive and slick. The prices are ok (all in malaysian ringgit).

 

You can save some money if you pre-book.

 

When I saw this plane coming in, I thought I had spotted a new Airline. Turns out to be an AirAsia aircraft, but in a 'Turn Back Crime' livery. Not sure what this livery was about, but it made for a good picture.

 

Spotted this FlyScoot aircraft as we were taxi-ing. Distinctive tail, however, this particular aircraft had plenty of red spots.

[Iluvcruising2]

The flight time was quite short, only 1hr 20minutes, approx. Now the fun started. We had pre-booked our meals, however, it looked like a large number of pax also pre-booked their meals and turned out that the service was very slow. There appeared to be a large group of pax on the plane, travelling together. Many of them also pre-booked meals.

 

The pilot had announced the start of descent, yet we hadn't gotten our food! Then, the cabin crew (4 of them) started to dish out the pre-booked food more and more rapidly, even as the plane was descending. It turned out that we ended up eating our meals right through descent and landing! Is this normal? Well, I got the entire experience on video, and you can watch it to believe it.

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Some stills. I spotted this very long bridge from the air.

 

Later on, I learnt that this was either the Penang bridge or the Penang Second Bridge (the latter bridge is longer). Not sure which one this is.

 

By the time I got my meal, we were already very close to landing.

 

This is how the Bukhara Chicken Briyani looked like. The taste wasn't bad.

 

Upon landing, the plane quickly taxi-ed to the terminal and I saw this Malaysian Airlines jet that had just pushed back.

 

This was a small airport, no aerobridge.

[iancal]

We have flown AirAsia on one long flight (KL-Gold Coast) and over the past three years multiple short hops. We have three Air Asia flights booked for the next six weeks. They have good flights that include transfer to docks and ferry passage to several islands that we visit.

 

We have also used NOK and Jetstar several times with great success. Tigerline was OK but we have only had one flight so far.

[waterbug123]

It turned out that we ended up eating our meals right through descent and landing! Is this normal?

 

The issue isn't the actual meal (food), it's that they apparently allowed pax to keep the tray tables down during landing. That would be an FAA violation here in the US, as it's a safety issue. I've never flown Air Asia so I can't say if that's normal for them or not, but I would not want to fly an airline that allows that. :eek:

[iancal]

We have flown Air Asia six or seven times over the past two years. Three flights coming up over the next month.

 

The crew has ALWAYS (on the flights we have been on) come along and ensured that table trays were up and seatbelts tightened for landing. This is something that we would notice immediately. Same with the others...NOK, Tigerair, Jetstar.

 

What we noticed last year were the ads that cover the overheads. Saw this on a few flights.

 

In SE Asia, Air Asia is always our first choice.

Edited January 30, 2016 by iancal

[rkacruiser]

Iluvcruising2,

 

Another of your informative and interesting videos! Thanks for posting them.

 

I think if I had been the Lead Flight Attendant, I might have asked the Captain to circle the airport for a few minutes.

 

Did the Flight Attendants say anything about the odd situation when they collected the meal trays or when you deplaned?

[Iluvcruising2]

Iluvcruising2,

 

Another of your informative and interesting videos! Thanks for posting them.

 

I think if I had been the Lead Flight Attendant, I might have asked the Captain to circle the airport for a few minutes.

 

Did the Flight Attendants say anything about the odd situation when they collected the meal trays or when you deplaned?

 

Nothing said. It was as if nothing strange had happened. :)

[iancal]

One year ago this week my spouse cracked two vertebrae in her back. We were in Kuala Lumpur on a 15 week trip. We had two choices. Continue our trip on to Australia/NZ or go home to Canada. DW chose to continue but with a week of bed rest in KL. We spent a week in the sun beside the pool at a very nice hotel.

 

DW decided to move forward. We booked Air Asia to Gold Coast (Australia) flight to meet up with friends. DW approached the AirAsia agent at the gate and explained her issue. The flight was quite full.

 

The agent re-assigned DW's seating. Gave her three seats in a row. Told her to board the flight, stretch out and make certain that no one moved into one of the seats. After takeoff she was able to stretch out and sleep for seven of the nine hours. Great service.

Edited February 5, 2016 by iancal