Budget Airlines Review: SIN-MLA

Oct 13, 2006. On my return flight to Singapore, i booked a flight with Cebu Pacific, to try the newly airline to SIN from MLA and vice versa which was launch last August 2006. So far there are three (3) airlines connecting SIN and MLA which are the following: Tiger, JetStar and Cebu Pacific. Though, all airlines are A320 airbus type, of course there are still differences with regards to the services being catered (presentation and all) and terminal locations.

Ticketing/Booking. All three (3) airlines uses online ticketing. I like the ticket by JetStar because they use PDF instead of plain document/text file. I heard a lot of complains with regards to the new website of Tiger which ticketing sometimes fail specially during online payment and that customers need to contact the call center just to fix the booking. In addition, JetStar and Cebu Pacific have reserve seats assigned in the boarding pass, while Tiger is a free seating causinng passengers to run and select their seats during boarding. In my opinion, JetStar and Cebu Pacific are better with regards to this service. Though, Tiger I think is still the cheapest.

Terminals. In Singapore they built a budget terminal which is mainly for budget airlines like the following airlines mentioned above, except with JetStar which still uses Changi-T1 (terminal 1). The difference are the following: (1) In terminal 1: Ambiance is good for shoppers, superb and a lot of items to choose from, passengers don't need to walk in open air during boarding and arrival and that you will feel that you are not taking a budgeted airline.; on the otherhand (2) in budget terminal: Items for shopping is less, the terminal is really budgeted (its like a warehouse [no offense]), passengers boarding and unboarding needs to walk in open air to get in and out of the terminal. In addition to Singpare Terminals, both have the same security setup.
While in MLA, terminals are in clark and NAIA(T1); clark is like the budget airline in SIN and NAIA(T1) is Changi-T1. The only difference in two are the security and location. If you dont want to remove your shoes during inspection then go to clark, and if you live in the north/city and wanted to avoid traffic then go for clark. Clark terminal is more presentable in NAIA-T1 since NAIA-T1 is quite old and not maintained well. In my opinion, JetStar is better with regards to this service.

Food/Currency. all three airlines have the same setup. they have menu and about 1 hour after take off they start to sell food and drinks. The only difference for now is that Cebu Pacific only accept Cash - PHP (Philippine Peso). And comparing the prices Cebu Pacific sells food and drinks cheapest comparing with the other airlines. In addition, Cebu Pacific provide passengers get a free 1 C2 iced tea, (a friend of mine told me that C2 is owned by Gokongwei which turns to be the owner of Cebu Pacific: nice advertisement/prmotion huh) I hope this is not a 'ningas cogon' type that in the long run they will remove this freebies. So far with regards to this kind of service, for me, Cebu Paficic gets the point. Although, I do hope next time around credit cards will be honored as well as other currency.

Crew/In Flight Services. Cebu Paficic have all Filipino crew (basing from my flight). Friendly, of course but sometimes I hardly understand their english..... you know what i mean but they translate all instructions to Filipino which is good because not all passengers of budget airlines have studied till college. Cebu Pacific crew smiles everytime. The two (2) other airlines are okay, crew are not that friendly enough. JetStar and Tiger have a total of 4 lavaroty while in Cebu Pacific it have only 2.
With regards to other service Cebu Pacific have some games they have trivias and whoever answer it they have a free gift from the airline, so far what i saw was they give souvenir and cup noodle to those who can answer. Which definitely the other two (2) airlines don't have. This makes the flight alive and active. So I think Cebu Pacific have this point.

So far as per my observatin Cebu Pacific got it next in line is JetStar and followed by Tiger. Though in some aspect i like JetStar but I am a Filipino and the difference is in the service: friendly crew, alive and active flight with new airline. Hope this will contine in a long run or else JetStar/Tiger will dominate SIN-MLA. But no matter what still the decision is still in the passenger specially with regards to their location and time of availability for the flight.