Review: Melbourne to London with AirAsia X
Here at Adioso, we like to "eat our own dog-food", that is - we like to use the products that we promote, namely: airlines. About a month ago, I did exactly that and took up the challenge to fly the most popular (and longest) route-combo on Adioso: Melbourne to London via Kuala Lumpur with AirAsia X.
So the big questions is: Is this the best way to get to London?
First off, let's look at some options - The AirAsia method is via Kuala Lumpur and is in two legs, first Melbourne to Kuala Lumpur (approx 7 hours) then Kuala Lumpur to London-Stansted (approx 14 hours) totaling 21 hours flying time. I did a quick search on Webjet and found (to my surprise) that there are actually no direct flights to London at all from Melbourne on any carrier, full service or otherwise.
I guess this makes sense, as it's too far for a plane to fly in one leg. So first conclusion - You're going to be stopping off somewhere no matter how you do it. If you look at the travel times above with the full-service carriers, they have between 3-9 hour stopovers and cost between $1960 - $2300.
The tickets we'd booked were during a sale, and the total cost including taxes + meals was about AUD$850 return. Our tickets had come from the initial launch sale, but since then I've found (through Adioso) return tickets available as cheaply as AUD$620 (right now they're about $1000). We'd elected to stay overnight in KL (I think the hotel cost about $60 between two) to be able to sleep, shower and rest between the two legs as who really wants to travel non stop for 30 hours.
So, we know right away that if nothing else, AirAsia is almost certainly the cheapest way to get to London if nothing else.
Now on to the review part -
The Planes
The first thing to note is that the two legs are not on the same type of plane: The Melbourne to KL leg is on an A330, while the London leg is on an A340. Why should you care, unless you're a plane geek? In a word: comfort.
For the A330's the upsides are that they're brand new, ultra clean and very modern. The downside is, the seats are rather small, fairly hard and don't recline.
Now, remember that this is only a 7 hour flight. I say "only" even though 7 hours is a long time, but if you were to watch 2 normal movies (or one Lord of the Rings) and eat a meal, you'd basically be there. Which brings me on to a point I'll cover shortly: Bring a copy of Lord of the Rings.
The London leg was in the larger A340's. These are slightly older planes but have bigger/better padded seats, more leg room and are generally far more comfortable. I would go as far as saying that this plane was significantly roomier than any of the Qantas 747's I've flown in recently.
So, in summary - the short leg was a little cramped, but at least it was short and, to be honest, only cost us AU$82 each. The longer/more expensive leg was roomy, more comfortable than full-service carriers I'd travelled with recently and still a lot cheaper.
The Service
On a plane, you want to be entertained - on our outbound Melbourne leg, the plane was not equipped with any entertainment at all. The in-flight magazine mentioned personal media-players, but the actual hardware seemed nowhere to be found. We later learned that this was a temporary problem, and sure enough, on the London leg (and on the way back) the media-players came out in force. I think they cost about AUD$10 but I have to say, whilst the players themselves were fine, the selection of media left a lot to be desired - There were maybe 6 movies (2 of them in Malaysian) and a few single episodes of average TV shows (Everybody Loves Raymond springs to mind).
In our case, this didn't bother us too much, as we had a laptop, an iPod and two iPhones, but not everyone was so fortunate and many had to spend the time worrying about contracting swine flu instead (see face-masks picture).
The food was about what you'd expect for plane food - not great, not intolerable and actually tasted a lot better than it looked (see below). You get one meal + snacks on the 7 hour flights, two on the 14 hour and as many drinks as you can afford. I recommend you pre-book meals online if you're planning on eating as otherwise you have to wait for the second round through and cash/change handling (slow).
The Conclusion
So, is this the best way to get from Melbourne to London? Well, although it was a little uncomfortable at times and I didn't get to see the latest Adam Sandler movie (actually, I did - Click was one of the movies on the players: 2 and a half stars) I can't argue with getting a shower/sleep in-transit whilst saving $1000 - $1200 and arriving with myself and my wallet feeling a lot better.
Can you get these super-cheap deals all the time? Well, maybe not all the time. That's what Adioso is for.
Filed under //
airasia
australia
entertainment
kualalumpur
london
malaysia
melbourne
review
stansted
uk
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