airlines

 by Red

Airport Hubs in Indonesia

Indonesia is made up of more than 17000 islands. And besides commonly visited places like Jakarta and Bali, there are many, many fantastic places to visit. Navigating your way through to these locations is a potential headache though. There are so many airlines and so many routes to consider.  Indonesian domestic airlines do not exactly have the best reputation for safety. But that’s not an excuse for not exploring what the Indonesian archipelago has to offer.

I’ve been flying in and out of Indonesia, visiting little enclaves of paradise and historical and natural wonders over the last few years, flash traveller style.  This meant travelling out of Singapore, taking flights that no sane traveller would even consider taking, either because I was trying to keep costs low, or simply because the bigger airlines don’t fly to the destination. It used to be a nightmare booking flight tickets through local agents or at the ticketing counter. However, over the last year, local airlines have started using online ticketing, to my relief.

Online Ticketing

First, let’s take a look at the different airline ticketing methods:

LionAir – I’ve tried booking online for Singapore to Bali (this route no longer exists). Verdict: Successful.

AirAsia – No problem with online booking here. Very reliable, though they only cover the major hubs.

Sriwijaya Air – Site goes down sometimes. But I just booked Jakarta to Ternate just now. They email you the ticket/itinerary. Someone will call to confirm your credit card user info. Verdict: Successful.

Batavia Air – Selecting the destination may stump you. There’s a field for “Departure city”, “Destination City” and “Return City”. So your return city technically can be completely different from your departure city. Weird. Leaving the Return City field empty will allow you to book one-way ticket. Worked for me. I didn’t get an email, but you can print out the ticket after payment confirmation. No idea how you can access your ticket if you don’t have a printer at that time though. Verdict: Successful.

Merpati Air – I’ve only tried buying from counter (Denpasar to Tambolaka), but there is an online booking option on the website now. However, there is a line saying that only Indonesian issued credit cards can be used. Plus the session keeps timing out each time I tried booking. Tell me if you managed to book Merpati tickets through their ticketing system. Verdict: Unsuccessful

Trigana Air – I can’t find any online ticketing service. And the page is in Indonesian. Verdict: Not Available

Express Air – The site is in English. But there is no online booking. You need to call, which means if you are not somewhere in Indonesia, it will be very tough to book. Verdict: Not Available

Air Transport Hubs of Indonesia

Depending on where in Indonesia you actually want to go, there are some routes that make more sense than others. I don’t profess to be an expert, but let me try to share what I know. This next section assumes you have a good geographical knowledge of the Indonesian islands, or at least have Google Maps opened in another tab right now. If not, please open one and type in Indonesia. =)

Jakarta‘s Soekarno-Hatta airport is obviously the main transport hub to the rest of Indonesia. (Side note: all the airports have unique funky names I love!).  You can’t go wrong if you start from here. It’s the main international airport where most airlines end up.

On Java, Surabaya‘s Juanda airport is another hub that serves east Java. Conveniently, AirAsia flies there from Kuala Lumpur, and Batavia Air and Jetstar flies there from Singapore. Both are convenient entry points if you want to avoid Jakarta.

Further east, of course Ngurah Rai airport in Denpasar, Bali is well known, going out to many International destinations, and probably the destination we Singaporeans end up at. But did you know you can actually go beyond Bali to places like Dili, East Timor through Batavia Air, for example? Ngurah Rai is also the hub for destinations to its east, covering the Nusa Tenggara  Timur / Barat (East/West Nusa Tenggara) provinces, which covers attractions like Lombok (the Gili Islands! Rinjani!) and Flores (Alor diving/whaling! Komodo Islands!).

While Denpasar covers the western end of Nusa Tenggara’s two provinces, the eastern end’s hub is served by Kupang’s El Tari airport. I’ve never been there myself, but it’s somewhere to start if you want to do an overland crossing to East Timor.

Over on Sumatra, Polonia Airport in Medan is a hub serving the land mass. Its close proximity to Malaysia and Singapore means airlines such as Jetstar, AirAsia and Firefly make frequent flights there. Medan itself is an interesting destination (Lake Toba! Bukit Lawang Orang Utans!)

Balikpapan‘s Sepinggan Airport is the hub for sights around Kalimantan. Diving in Derawan and Sangalaki is to the north. Surprisingly there are no connections from the north side. (Borneo’s Kuching and Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia). AirAsia flies here from Kuala Lumpur though.

Recently the Indo government is trying to make Makassar (Sultan Hasanuddin Airport) the major transport hub leading to destinations in East Indonesia. So now Garuda, Indonesia’s national carrier flies direct from Singapore. Makassar is the start-off point for adventures up north in Sulawesi (Tanah Toraja!) though a connecting flight is oft needed elsewhere, even on Sulawesi since travelling overland is not easy. Makassar would serve people wanting flights to Manado, and elsewhere on the Maluku islands (Ambon, Ternate etc)

Lastly, all the way to the east is Papua. Jayapura is the capital of the province (Sentani Airport) leading to Cenderawasih Bay and overland crossings into Vanimo, Papua New Guinea. Sorong (Domine Edward Osok Airport) is where you start for Raja Ampat diving. I haven’t been on Papua myself, so I do not have much information on these airports.

There you have it. So in summary, you have Jakarta for destinations all over Indonesia including western Indonesia, plus Makassar as the main hub to destinations in eastern Indonesia.Then you have the seaports and the Pelni boats. But that would stretch this post to twice the length, and I doubt you want to spend 48 hrs sitting on board boats. If any of your reading this is an expert on the sea network, you can educate me. =)

If you found this entry useful, do share the post! Do comment or drop me a note if you need help with these routes. I’ll share what I know.

in Indonesia / South East Asia / Travel Tips 0 comments
 by Red

The KLIA LCCT Customs Clearance Run

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit” runs through my mind as I stand in the snaking queue. I glance at my watch every few seconds, mentally wishing the queue before me would vanish, and I would be next in line to have my passport stamped. The Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) Low Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT) customs clearance building is a huge high-ceilinged hall which fits hundreds comfortably. Yet, with thousands pouring out of the planes outside on the tarmac and making their way into the building, it is inevitable that there will be a huge crowd.

Despite the surprising efficiency of the passport-stamping customs officers behind the tables, it really was a long queue, and I seriously doubted I would make it in time for the next flight. I will need to clear customs, collect my checked-in bag from the conveyor, rush to the departure counter, do my paperwork for the connecting flight, check in again, and rush back on the SAME tarmac I left earlier to get to this second plane.

I hear the final boarding call, the check-in counter closes 45 minutes before departure, which meant I have exactly 5 minutes left. As soon as the line reached me, I beseeched the customs officer to be quick, and then sprinted down the corridor, traversing the escalator, to the check-in row, only to find out the counter close, and the staff packing up. I pleaded with them to let me check-in. To my enormous relief, they decided to help the flustered pathetic Singaporean, and made a phone call or two, telling the plane crew that there’s one more passenger coming in. Phew, made it by the skin of my teeth, I thought as I finally boarded the plane.

How did I get into this predicament? I was flying Singapore to KL, and then KL to Aceh. I had buffered two hours for the transit period. What I didn’t count on, however, was a delay on the Singapore to KL flight, which seems to be the norm, especially later in the afternoon, when the accumulated delay of multiple SG to KL return flights starts to add up.
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There’s no doubt about it, for the budget-conscious Singaporean traveller, AirAsia flights out of Kuala Lumpur (KL) are considerably cheaper than on other low cost airlines that fly out of Singapore. It could be the airport tax, or price competition, but flying from KL to Siem Reap is on average cheaper than from flying from Singapore to Siem Reap. Now this point about cheaper prices is moot, since most Singaporeans (i) can’t be bothered with the extra hassle of taking two flights, (ii) the cost of the SG-KL return flight included adds up to about the same price anyway, and (iii) we don’t have so much time to do things like take overnight coaches or trains from SG to KL, which though cheaper than the SG-KL flights, demands much of our precious time.

And yet, why do I do it? Simply because in the AirAsia network, there are many exciting destinations that both Jetstar and Tiger currently do not cover. Want to dive the Indonesian Sulawesi archipelago? Fly KL to Makassar. Want to see how well the tsunami recovery work goes in Aceh? Fly KL to Banda Aceh. Want to see Sri Lanka’s many historical and natural marvels? Fly KL to Colombo.

Visiting these places requires that I plan properly. After the aforementioned incident, I decided that putting in extra buffer time is not just a good idea, it is a practically a necessity! Better to lounge at KLIA / LCCT and wait (wifi available) for a few hours rather than risk missing the flight altogether.

However, in accordance to Murphy’s Law, anything that can go wrong probably will. So here below are a few tips to get through a potentially really bad situation, in case you do try the KLIA / LCCT Customs Clearance Run.

1) Firstly, prevention is still the better option. Plan your trip well, don’t allocate 2 hours to clear the entry and then exit customs. It’s not enough, knowing the unreliability of low-cost carriers. Flightstats.com’s Feb-Mar 2011 data shows that despite AirAsia’s higher than industry average of 96% on-time performance; the KL-SG route achieves only 89% on-time performance. Which means that there is a whopping 11% chance your flight will be delayed. (There is some doubt on the accuracy of data, since SG-KL is 100%, impossible since it’s the same plane going back and forth.) Delays are brief, around 45 minutes is the max I have ever come across. A safe guide then is 3 hours buffer, more if you can afford the time.

2) Don’t check-in luggage. This cuts at least 5 to 10 minutes of waiting time, important especially when you have no time to hunt for your bag amongst the mess that is on the conveyor. Or maybe you have to wait because you are too fast and they have yet to unload the bags (No snaking queue, but you didn’t buffer enough time). Without luggage, you may just get that next flight before the counter closes.

3) If you really need to have checked-in luggage, consider waiting for the ground staff to unload the luggage. I’m not sure this is possible at LCCT, but I have witnessed elsewhere at a smaller airport where a fellow traveller picked up his backpack straight from the baggage compartment and going himself, thereby saving valuable time.

4) Make sure all your papers are in order: fill up your white immigration card, don’t have suspicious stamps on your passport. You really don’t want to get into a situation where you miss the flight because the customs officer cannot read your handwriting, or starts questioning you about your Israel stamp.

5) Join the queue that is on either end of the mass of queuing passengers. Somehow, experience has shown that these are the fastest queues. It is a clear line, unlike in the middle lines, where two squashed masses may merge to form one line, once they realize there is only one queue in front of them. This slows down the queue considerably. Another variant of this trick is to simply join the queue which has an adjacent empty counter. A customs officer would inevitably start a new counter, and half the crowd from your line will shift to this new line. Since you are in the adjacent line, you can call dibs to stay or join the new line. Either way, you r queue is halved.

6) Take care to remove all airport prohibited items, and get rid of all your metallic gear so you can go through the metal detector without a hitch. Any delay is unacceptable, and missing the flight because you are too lazy to take off your belt is a sad, sad thing.

So that’s the post. Hopefully it helps to get you through the customs clearance run without a hitch. If you have other tips, do post a comment below.

And finally, a footnote: Since the end of 2010, AirAsia has introduced the “fly-through” concept, which allows flights out of Singapore, via KL, to a destination, to be booked under a single return ticket. This applies for most of the AirAsiaX destinations, to further places in South Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, even London and Paris. I have yet to try out, but it is a smart idea that opens up many new destinations, albeit, with the extra waiting time, and changing out to another plane. However, with no plan in sight to allow Singapore to become an AirAsia hub, the “fly through” concept ensures AirAsia still gets a big piece of that lucrative Singapore travel market. Personally, I have not tried it before (let me know if you have) but I will let you know how it went, come August. SG-KL-New Delhi.

in Malaysia / Singapore / South East Asia 0 comments
 by Red

The Budget Airlines Guide to Flights out of Singapore

You are the cost-conscious traveler. You are travelling in South-East Asia. You don’t want the frills, you don’t want the bells the whistles. All you want is to get from Point A to Point B at the cheapest price possible. How do you do it?

Budget airlines rule the roost here when you are travelling within the region. They are cheap, safe and the choice for anyone watching the dollars. Of course, your air miles can bring you further, but for travel within the region, nothing beats the budget airlines.

So which are the budget airlines offering the most routes, and the cheapest prices? For the latter, it is very much dependent on the offers put up at the period. Booking an air ticket during a promotion can get you crazy prices.

This article assumes that you are flying out of Singapore. If you are flying out of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, then AirAsia is your best bet for cheap, unbeatable prices. In fact, if you have the time, taking a bus, train or flight out to KLCC (AirAsia’s low cost airport) and flying to your destination from there could actually net you lower prices than if you were to fly out of Changi, Singapore.

Ok. Let’s begin. The two largest operators out of Singapore are Tiger Airways and Jetstar. They fly to the most places, and the difference between the two is that Tiger Airways flies out of the Changi Budget Terminal, whereas Jetstar flies out of Terminal 1. Both charge extra for check-in luggage. Jetstar has many onward routes from Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi, from its Jetstar Pacific arm in Vietnam. It also flies to various destinations in Australia, from the parent company Jetstar Airways.

Tiger on the other hand has its subsidiary Tiger Airways Australia, based in Melbourne, flying to various destinations around Australia. Thai Tiger, its joint venture with Thai Airways is scheduled to begin operations in May 2011, so expect onward flights to various Thai cities from Singapore. At the end of 2010, Tiger also has an agreement with Philippines’ South East Asian Airlines, to set a base in Clark Airport.

The third major budget airline in Singapore is AirAsia. Though not based in Singapore, it is nevertheless the largest operator in Asia, and has flights to major cities in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, with the latter two being subsidiaries operating out of Jakarta, and Bangkok respectively. AirAsia’s sister company, AirAsia X, flies long haul budget flights to faraway places like Paris (Orly), London (Stansted) and other destinations in China, India, Australia and New Zealand. These flights involve a transfer at Kuala Lumpur’s LCCT airport, but with its revamped on-line ticketing system, travelers can book flights from Singapore, transiting in LCCT on a single ticket. It’s great really. I’m a big AirAsia fan, and my only bone with AirAsia is that it’s flights from Singapore are often priced higher than elsewhere. However, once you get to Kuala Lumpur, you will revel in the dirt cheap prices! The discerning traveler with plenty of time at his hands would find some way to get up to Kuala Lumpur from Singapore.

Those are the three major players. If you have time, then AirAsia is hands down the cheapest. But if time is a factor, then Jetstar and Tiger Airways are your best bet.

Next, we talk about the other lesser-known airlines flying from Changi. With a little research, these airlines could actually net you cheaper prices on some well-known destinations that the three airlines above fly. For example, did you know that Indonesia’s Lion Air does flights from Singapore to Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam? It’s a stopover from Jakarta, and it’s worth checking out, prices are competitive, and unlike the three abovementioned, there is a 20kg baggage allowance that comes with the ticket.

Since we are on airlines based in Indonesia, a couple of Indonesian domestic airlines flying to Singapore are Sriwijaya Air and Batavia Air. These fly to a few destinations in Indonesia, chiefly Jakarta, from where you can take one of the multitudes of airlines to an onward destination in Indonesia. All three, including Lion Air, has online booking facilities, unlike many other domestic airlines. There was a fourth airline, Mandala Air, but they filed for bankruptcy recently, though there is a high chance they may resume operations.

Ok. Malaysia. Besides AirAsia, there are a couple of other players. Firefly is the budget arm of Malaysian Airlines, operating out of Subang Airport in Selangor. They fly to a few places from Singapore, namely Subang, Kuantan and Ipoh. Then there is also Berjaya Air, flying to the northern Peninsula Malaysia resort islands of Tioman and Redang.

Next we have destinations to the Philippines. The main player is Cebu Pacific, and they fly out of Singapore to Clark, Manila and Cebu. From these airports, you can easily get to further destinations in the north, or even east (Palau?!). However, there is a second smaller airline flying to Singapore. AirPhil Express is a domestic airline based in Manila, and Singapore is their one and only international destination thus far. They fly from Changi to Cebu and Manila.

Another interesting destination is Koh Samui, Thailand. Bangkok Airways, while technically is not a budget airline, flies to the holiday getaway, and is worth mentioning.

Lastly, an airline to note  is AirIndia Express. While AirAsia X flies out to Mumbai and New Delhi, and Tiger flies to Tiruchirapalli and Trivandrum, AirIndia Express adds other destinations, flying also to Tiruchirapalli, and to Chennai and Kolkata. With this airline, it is also possible to get to Dhaka, Bangladesh, via a stopover in Kolkata.
So that’s it. A list of budget airlines to help you, the cost-conscious traveler, make an informed decision. Online flight search engines often leave out the budget airlines when their search results come out, so with the information above, you can go to the airline’s website and compare prices for your destination.

in Travel Tips 0 comments