AirAsia vs Scoot-Who is better LCC in Asia?

This post is due since long time- was in draft for several months, finally managed to complete and publish.

I had earlier compared full service airline Malindo Air with budget airline Air Asia. In this post, I am comparing Air Asia with its Singapore based rival, Scoot. This comparison is from an Indian passenger's perspective. I have flown multiple times on Air Asia so know their products n services fairly well, but have flown Scoot (when it was tiger air) only thrice, so my experience with Scoot is limited, but enough to do this comparison.

Air Asia X- now everyone can fly extra long!

Both AirAsia and Scoot are budget airlines, based in Asia and fly to a lot of destinations in South East Asia, Australia and few other destinations including US, Europe and Japan. At least two third of their destinations are common, meaning they both compete with each other to grab passengers headed for a destination. As a fare paying passenger which airline is better? Which one to choose? The decision often depends upon multiple factors- mainly ticket price, followed by secondary consideration such as convenient timings, cost of add-on services, facilities in the aircraft and at transit hub and general perception/reputation.

Though AirAsia and Scoot have similar operational models, there’re considerable differences when we dig a bit deeper. In this post, I am offering comparison on multiple grounds, to help you decide for yourself.

Comparison 1: General Aspects

#	Criteria	Air Asia	Scoot	Winner/Remarks
1	Frequency of sale/promos	Higher	Little less	AirAsia
2	Probability of finding lowest advertised fares	Higher	Much difficult	AirAsia
3	Ease of booking	Same	Same
4	Who charges less convenience fee	Very less for net banking	No net banking option	AirAsia
5	Ease of contacting support	Reasonable No Toll free	Reasonable Toll free	Scoot
6	Destinations covered	130+ across some 20 countries [Full list]	74+ across 20 countries [Full list]	AirAsia
7	Within India Operations	Yes	No	AirAsia
8	Hub	KLIA2, DMK	Changi	Scoot
9	Aircrafts	A320 and A330	737,  Dreamliner	Scoot
10	Reliability	Fair	Fair
11	Major accidents	1 full body loss, many minor incidents	No full body loss, less incidents	Scoot
12	Parent Company	-	Singapore Airline
13	Ease of getting visa for hub country	Easy (eNTRI, eVisa and one year multiple entry visa	Less easy- multiple entry visa/longer validity not guaranteed	AirAsia
14	Cities served in India	25+	11	AirAsia
15	Recent awards won	Skytrax multiple awards	Airline rating award	AirAsia
16	Partnership with	No codeshare outside AirAsia group	About 8 airlines	Scoot
17	Loyalty program	Available	Available (KrisFlyer)	Scoot

One main reason I like Air Asia is that when they advertise a promo sale, it is indeed possible to locate the advertised lowest fare on some days- usually towards the end dates of the promo period. So if they advertise a round trip ticket of say 8k INR, it is indeed possible to locate that fare and book.

Scoot on the other hand I find it very tough. They run lots of advertising campaigns, like promoting 5500 Rs ticket and so on. Like this one below.

But when I go to their website, search for various dates, I never find this lowest fare. There is no easy way of knowing from where to where this low fare is available, for what travel dates and so on. Without this info, it will be frustrating experience to search for multiple date combinations and still fail to locate advertised lowest fare. We are not fools to see the ad and then book at whatever high price Scoot shows on the website. The final price (including convenience fee) should be cheap enough (compared to competition and lower fares I have seen in past) to tempt me into booking. Scoot only loses advertisement money and increases frustration among prospective customers by not making it simple to spot and book low fares.

So far Scoot were showing all prices in USD, which would cost me additional expense in currency conversion, bank fees. Only recently Scoot has started accepting payment in INR. But unlike AirAsia, Scoot doesn’t accept net banking payment. Credit card payments attract heavy convenience fee. Thus overall I find Scoot a bit expensive and inconvenient compared to AirAsia. In AirAsia if I could find a ticket to Gold Coast for about 20700, the lowest I could find on Scoot is 24000+ (26k if I factor 2k convenience fee, currency conversion etc) that is easily 20% more expensive than Air Asia.

AirAsia shows price right inside date selector calendar, Scoot doesn't. They have a "See whole month" option though.

But Scoot connects via Changi, one of the best airports in the world. So transiting via Changi is much better than flying via KLIA2 that has bare minimum facilities. Plus Scoot’s fleet includes dreamliners, which are believed to be a bit better than A330. Scoot also has the support of its parent company Singapore Airline, so in case of a problem they could get some support (like Engineering/alternate flights etc)

While Scoot flies to Athens in Europe and lots of secondary cities in Australia (Hobart, Sunshine Coast etc) Scoot seem to be skipping many countries in South East Asia like Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Brunei, Srilanka and so on (where AirAsia has coverage). Also for some destinations like Seoul where AirAsia flies non stop, Scoot flies one stop (via Taiwan). Scoot's network coverage is about half that of AirAsia.

Now let us see who is cheaper, for various sectors and add-on services

Comparison 2: Who is cheaper?

#	Criteria	Air Asia	Scoot	Winner/Remarks
1	Chennai Bali Return, 3 months from now	INR 16776	INR 22342	AirAsia
2	20 kg baggage for Chennai-Bali trip	INR 4510	INR 6145	AirAsia
3	Cost of One meal	INR 192 onwards (higher price for AirAsia X, 4x on Honolulu)	INR 945 to 1155, but same price on all routes	AirAsia
4	Chennai-Gold Coast Return- 5 to 6 months from now (Economy)	28744 INR	INR 35736	AirAsia
5	Cost of 40 kg bag for Australia trip	15100 INR	16000 INR	AirAsia
6	Chennai- Gold Coast Business class return (Scoot Biz, AA Flatbed)	1.1 Lakhs INR	87000 INR (but not flatbed)	Not comparable due to difference in features
7	Cheapest Seat selection fee (for MAA-KUL or MAA-SIN)	INR 159 (can be skipped) to INR 749	INR 545 to 2625 (can be skipped)	AirAsia
8	Travel Insurance (MAA-DPS)	INR 364
9	Convenience fee	210 for net banking, 840 for Credit Cards	INR 2016 0	AirAsia Scoot, as it has removed convenience fee from Oct 2019
10	Payment in INR	Possible	Possible	for ex-India tickets
11	Does website pre-select some add on/expensive option and we’ve to de-select?	At times	At times
12	Inflight WiFi		INR 400+
13	Inflight magazine	Travel 3Sixty- Very good	Unable to comment
14	Lowest price I’ve ever seen for Chennai-Gold Coast	20700+ INR	26000+ INR	AirAsia
15	Web Check-in	14 days	3 days	AirAisa
16	In-flight entertainment	Rokki,(streaming) on select flights	Scoot TV on dreamliners
17	Possibility of upgrade	Low	Low
18	Comfort Kit		INR 900+
19	Priority Boarding	NA	INR 300	Scoot
20	Lounge Access	INR 1300 for 3 hours	INR 2000	AirAsia

As you can see AirAsia is usually cheaper in all aspects- fare, add-on services, mandatory convenience fee and so on. Unless you're very particular on date of travel, it is possible to wait for an AirAsia sale and fly for much cheaper fares- main reason I like AirAsia. As much as wish to try flying more on Scoot,higher fares and higher add-on fees are a big deterrent.

In terms of flying experience both have been decent. We shouldn’t expect to be treated like Emirates or SQ passengers. Both Air Asia and Scoot will fly us to our destination for lowest possible price. Everything else is chargeable- as you can see above, baggage, food etc are a bit cheaper on AirAsia compared to Scoot. In-flight service is decent by LCC standards- I don’t have any complaints.

In terms of reliability, AirAsia is does change flight timings and cancels them quite often- particularly when tickets are booked years in advance, very high chance that something will change. So far it hasn't caused extreme inconvenience- often gives me an option to take refund or reschedule free of cost on my otherwise non-refundable ticket. With Scoot all 3 of my flights were on time- haven't tracked more how friendly/flexible they are when a flight is rescheduled/cancelled.

I haven't had an opportunity to try Scoot's loyalty program or experience their customer support during a service disruption or having to avail refund. So no comments yet.

Don't have any major complaints on Air Asia, except their refund process is unnecessarily complicated and loyalty program is practically useless for me [Review]

Have you flown both Air Asia and Scoot recently? Which one do you prefer? Why? Let us know in comments.

In summary, over 37 points assessed, AirAsia seems to be better over 18 points, Scoot on 7 and remaining 12 undecided/similar.

#	Airline	Pros	Cons
1	AirAsia	Lower fares than competition Better network, timings	Hub Airport not as good as Changi
2	Scoot	Better Aircrafts Better hub airport	Can’t pay by netbanking, credit card convenience fee very high Add-ons are relatively expensive Lowest fares hard to find

My Wish-list for Scoot:

• When you advertise a low fare, make it easy to find (on what dates etc)
• Add-on services, convenience fee much higher than competition- possible to revive? (update: this has been removed effective October 2019)
• Try to match AirAsia's fares, if not cheaper

My Wish-list for AirAsia

• Make refund process easier
• Give some loyalty points on Promo fares as well or give some useful benefits for Gold/Platinum/Black members (such as lounge access, priority boarding, free upgrade etc)

Disclaimer: All information as taken from respective airline websites at the time of preparing this post. Pricing information is very dynamic- please check for yourself for date, origin and destination you have in mind and decide.

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