Flight Review: Tigerair SIN to BKK

To get to Bangkok from Singapore, I decided to try a low-cost carrier I hadn’t tried before. Tigerair is a subsidiary of Singapore Airlines and headquartered in Singapore.

For many destinations, you can check in online, but for Bangkok, I couldn’t. So I arrived at the airport 2 hours prior to departure to find a very long check-in line. After about 25 minutes in line, I had my boarding pass and checked my bag, and it was a quick trip through immigration to the lounges.

The flight didn’t start boarding until 20 minutes prior to scheduled departure, but everything ended up being on time. Somehow, I was assigned an exit row seat, even though I hadn’t paid for it or requested one. Perhaps the check-in agent was just feeling generous? The pitch in the exit row was great for a quick flight, although the typical seat pitch is 30″.

The cabin was relatively plain. There weren’t tons of ads everywhere like on AirAsia, and it wasn’t particularly colorful. There was an in-flight announcement that only food and drink purchased on board can be consumed during the flight, but I’m not sure how they enforce that rule.

That being said, there was an extensive buy on board menu. In the future, I might be tempted order a meal just to try it. You can pre-order meals for a discount, and there were lots of different meal and drink options (including vegetarian meals!).

In general, I’m perfectly content flying low-cost carriers in Asia. The flights are usually pretty short, and the prices are often significantly cheaper than legacy carriers (although not always! especially when you add in bag and ticket fees).