In Reply to: Air Asia - anyone flown with them?? posted by Carms on Wednesday, 2. February 2005 at 17:37 Bali Time:
I wrote a report on my experiences flying with Air Asia that went into some detail. I think the post was titled "air asia report".
In short, I did have a couple of probs when I discovered Bandung Airport doesn't do VOA, and when my flight from Jakarta to Johor Baru was cancelled and rebooked via KL the next day (which was too late for me to fly out of Singapore).
Neither of those problems should affect you, as you don't need VOA and it's unlikely the Jk-bali route will be cancelled.
If they give you a price and you pay them, they will honour that price, no matter what. Even if they have to fly you via Japan, Hong Kong and Madagascar to get there. That's the good news.
The bad news is that they seem to get stuffed around a bit by the major airlines, so if there are delays, they are last on the pecking list. Nevertheless, three out of my five flights with them left within fifteen minutes of the scheduled time.
One thing I like is that they don't allocate seat numbers, so you can sit where you like and sometimes have a whole row to yourself. The downside to this is that some businessmen (ALWAYS MEN, ALWAYS ON BUSUNESS) get on early and sit in the aisle seat to stop anyone sitting next to them. But if you have the nuggets to ask them to get out of the way, you will end up with a window seat, and a vacant seat next to you.
And they are cheap as buggery (sometimes cheaper, or so I have heard). I'm actually surprised the price you are quoted is so high. I got from KL to Bangkok and back, plus from jk to JB for around that much (and almost half of that was departure taxes). Maybe coz I booked early.
Their domestic Indonesian service has only just started up, and a few months ago they were advertising flights for only a couple of bucks.
And even though Malaysia has a bad reputation for credit card fraud, I have had no problems in the six months or so since I paid for the flights.
God, I have babbled. Anyway, they are undoubtedly cheap. But don't book dates that have no leeway with connecting flights, just in case there are unforeseen problems.
And by the way, if you haven't been to Jakarta before... it rocks. But don't expect any beaches. If you love cities, you'll love Jakarta. Unless you prefer clean cities... in which case just go to Singapore.