Which one is better?
When it comes to overseas travel using an air carrier, different group of people may view things differently. Students and young adults may prefer budget airlines as it “seems” cheaper, whereas adults and elderly may prefer non-budget airlines for comfortability and reliability.
In this post, we will discuss the following factors in order to evaluate which one is better:
- Cost
- Comfort
- Reliability
Let’s say you want to go to Jeju from Singapore on 14th August to 17th August. The dates would vary abit depending on the offer. Please note that I am just throwing some random number.
I will use:
- Kiwi to find budget flights.
- Google Flight to find non-budget flights.
Budget Airline
Non-budget Airline
Cost
What would be the first thing that come to your mind when you hear the word “budget airline”? “Cheap”! But is that really the case?
Cost | Duration | |
Budget Airline | $632 | 17hrs / 8hrs |
Non-budget Airline | $590 | 12hrs |
It is clearly shown that non-budget airline is cheaper. Not to mention that budget flight, you still need to pay for the following items whereas it has been included for non-budget airline:
- Seat selection
- Meals
- Extra leg room
- Baggages
Comfort
Budget airline usually has a tight leg room for short destination while non-budget airline has enough space for your leg to extend be it short or long destination.
Budget airline does not come with meals. You have to pay extra for main meals, desserts, and drinks. Non-budget airline comes with a complete set of meals. It gives you a peace of mind.
Additionally, taking a budget airline might means you might need to transfer to different flight. This introduces inconvenience because it means you need to check out your baggage and check in to a different flight.
Reliability
When I talk about reliability here, I mainly refer to:
- Adherence to the flight schedule
- Airline safety
Budget airline tend to breach the flight schedules often due to the need to perform further maintenance. One good example I can use is Lion Air from personal experience.
I took Lion Air to Lombok, Indonesia. The flights delayed both during departure and return, which caused me to miss my connecting flight. When I asked those affected, I was told that delays happens on daily basis.
The customer service was not helpful either. I was blamed for choosing a connecting flight that is less than 4 hours apart to take into account additional delays.
Non-budget airlines do have its own share of delays and flight postponement, but the occurrences of such events is much lesser than its counterpart.
Conclusion
Budget airlines can be cheap and worthwhile for short or domestic destinations. However, non-budget airlines would be a good choice for those who value comfort and reliability. If you are bringing check-in baggages, non-budget airline would definitely save you more.