Come Fly with Me

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Great news.

You have finally managed to escape from that hellish midnight-express style prison – or maybe you just have a few days off up that wizard-like sleeve of yours, and wish to do more with them than mope around the house.

Maybe it’s time to fly somewhere.
I can hear the groans now. Oh, the economy is so bad, what about the recession?
The reality is that there has rarely been a better time to fly, nor a better time to pick up a value holiday.

Everybody seems to be in panic mode about this recession, and the facts are that travellers are wooed being with reduced prices, open arms and lots of competitive promotions designed to “tempt you back”.

These days, hopping on a plane is almost as informal as hopping into a car, and with the cost of petrol, coupled with licensing, insurance, traffic fines, & busy roads, often less so.

This is a quick look at the difference between budget carriers and full service carriers.

Full service carriers could probably be described as the “old” airlines.

You know the ones. They dress nicely and smile at you a lot (hopefully), and have conveniently located departure gates within a few minutes walk of check-in.

You get a glossy card with rounded corners as a boarding pass from a dedicated, branded check-in counter, and maybe even a cheap travel wallet to keep it in.

You are allowed 20kg of luggage, but their generosity is such that the nice man or lady will often acquiesce if your have 29kg and let it on for ‘free’

They come down the aisle with boiled lollies to chew – and they don’t tell you off if you take 5 or 6.
The inflight magazine is allowed to be taken home, and you get a little plastic baggie with headphones to watch scratchy quality, but very recent movies to take your mind off plummeting out of the clouds at a rapid pace.

Also designed to encourage camaraderie, bravado and a Rip Van Winkle slumber is the drinks trolley.

This wonderful invention shows up everywhere from “on call” to “once, or twice if you’re lucky” depending on the airline that you choose, and many travel plans are made on the basis of the contents and frequency of the free drinks and snacks.

Then, the coup de grace – the inflight meal.
This is served with grim determination, no matter how short the flight, and is accompanied by inexpensive wine, two refills of coffee or tea, and finished with the threat of a snifter of cognac.

The inflight meal is a masterpiece of modern times, and consists of culturally and bacterially inoffensive items cooked and decontaminated into submission by an ant-like colony of flight caterers, then packed into tiny modular boxes that you move around on your cramped tray as you eat, like so many pieces of lego.

Count the olives – there used to be two in the salad, but the bean counters have worked out that removing one saves $10,000 a year. If, like me, you hate cheap, low quality pitted black olives, that is actually a bonus. I have never had a colossal marinated kalamata as part of an inflght meal yet.

Exit from your large plane, which takes forever, and wait in a long queue for your bags.

Thanks for flying with us, and paying what seems like the GDP of a small third world country.

The lucky flight attendants and on board staff do one flight, and then stay in a four or five star hotel with complimentary restaurant or room service, plus an allowance to spend on being in a city away from home.

Thanks, passenger.

To show their appreciation, take some frequent flyer points and in 4 years of several flights a year, you might earn an upgrade to business class.

The budget airlines are the ‘new’ airlines.

They got the idea from the full service carriers removing that one olive – and then applied it across the whole business model.

They cut out most of the frills and focus on getting you from point A to point B.

If you are the sort of person who takes the boiled lollies home to the kids, and dreams about your selection from the drinks trolley for a week before you fly, then budget carriers are not for you!

If you like collecting frequent flyer points, you are going to hate these airlines.
If you view an airline as a tool to get you to your destination in the shortest possible time, then have a closer look.

Often, major airports are avoided in favour of smaller, less expensive airports.

Sometimes the cost of flying between small airports is ridiculously low. So low, that it competes favourably with BUS travel!

At major airports the furthest gates are used, which includes a long walk to the end of the airport, and often you catch a bus across the tarmac to get to the plane rather than walk down a gangway to reduce airport charges.

Check in desks can change location from day to day, and boarding passes are printed like shop receipts on thermal paper.

Your baggage limit is strictly between 0kg and 15kg, and 100 grams over means stumping up more cash or unpacking and leaving it behind.

The check in and boarding is usually fast and on time – as staff work several flights back to back and have tight deadlines to meet.

Generally, your ticket includes the flight, a read of the inflight magazine which cannot be removed from the plane, and your baggage allowance.

Budget airlines are being very creative about charging for ‘extras’ – so you will pay extra if you want drinks, food, baggage or the ability to choose a particular seat such as window or aisle.

One much maligned but affordable UK carrier even floated the idea of having pay-toilets on board to reduce costs even further.

Some folks hate this lack of frills as it supposedly destroys the romance of travel.

Personally I find budget airlines to be better for short haul flights as the cost is so low, and the planes smaller, so check in and baggage claim both tend to be a lot faster, meaning you are enjoying your destination in record time rather than queuing in airports.

Exit from the plane is quicker as they just park and unload rather than taxi around the tarmac for 20 minutes to get to the epicentre.

And most importantly, the budget airlines cannot afford to be late. This, to me, is the biggest bonus.

No four or five star hotels for these aircrew. They work with military precision to get you on and off the plane so they can turn it around, fill it up again and get their staff back home to avoid paying overtime or ‘away from home’ allowance.

Bad for the staff, but GREAT for the passengers who hate the frequent delayed flights of some larger airlines.

It is quite something to watch the budget carriers organise their passengers onto the plane before scheduled take-off time.

I have never seen this consistent efficiency and timeliness from a full service carrier in my 24 years of travelling.

In short, find a great deal online orr through an agent with the full service carriers on long haul flights of 4-6 hours or more. They normally, but not always, have more comfortable seats and the extras may be of comfort when cooped up for a longer period. Additionally, on long haul flights you may find that the extra baggage allowance and included meal of full service airlines may balance out the overall cost.

For short haul flights from 30 minutes to 4 hours, definitely consider a budget carrier – as they have made it possible to fly with the minimum of cost, hassle and delay to an ever increasing choice of destinations.

Arguably, you are only on the planet once. See as much of it as you can.

Best regards,

Chef Shane

The Culinary Globe Trotter

chefshane@prochef360.com

Image Credit: vegetherrien

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