fly budget to melbourne

an economy ticket on sia to melbourne costs s$1200 inclusive of taxes and surcharges. fly budget and you pay only $750, giving you a saving of $450. the cheapest flight on a full-fare airline is about $800 plus, on cathay pacific. the drawback is that you have to transit in hong kong and make a stopover in adelaide.

if you have time at hand and you do not mind the waiting and long queues at the terminal, then taking a budget flight is not a bad deal. whereas it takes seven and a half hours to fly (on sia)direct from singapore to melbourne, it will take you about eleven hours on tiger airways. the total flight time includes a three-hour transit in darwin.

i was told that at darwin, you have to change plane which means another round of queuing. with budget fare, you are not served any food or drink. in fact, they do not encourage or allow you to take your own food to eat on board the plane. so, it is four hours without food or drink to darwin and another four hours to melbourne. of course, you can still get food on board but you have to pay for it. there is also no in-flight entertainment.

i remember on our first no-frills flight to bangkok, ivy and ida ordered cup noodles and did not finish the food.

one of the drawbacks of travelling budget is that there is no rescheduling of a flight once it is booked. i think you cannot recover any money in the event of a cancellation. on tiger airways, baggage limit is 15kg. i am sure it is also the case - lower baggage limit - with the other budget carriers.