We welcome to the Globetrotters Blog today mum of 2 Kylie from Our Overseas Adventures to review budget Airline Scoot
We recently flew with our two kids aged six and eight from Athens to Melbourne with Scoot, the budget airlines arm of Singapore Airlines.
The main reason we chose to fly with Scoot was because of the price! For two adults and two children, we paid 1,143 Euros, which was much cheaper than any other airline we looked at. The booking process was very easy via the FlyScoot website.
We had also been exploring up in the Arctic Circle in Finland, so the connecting flights from Helsinki through to Athens worked well. The one downside of this cheap flight is that it’s very long – it will literally take you over two days! The flight involves a 21-hour stopover in Singapore, which is great if you want to go and see some of the city, which is very easy to do. However, if time is of the essence, this probably isn’t the flight for you.
This post is part of our Flying with kids series – pop over to see all our family airline reviews and flying advice
Baggage on Scoot
In terms of baggage allowance, passengers can take free of charge two pieces of hand luggage each on board, with a combined weight of up to 10kg. You need to pay additional for any checked baggage – we had a 20kg bag which cost us an additional 102 Euros.
We had a LOT of hand luggage, to the point where I thought we may be pushing it, however, the check-in staff didn’t bat an eyelid! If you’re travelling with little ones, you can bring a lightweight foldable stroller which can be taken on board as long as it fits in the overhead lockers, for no additional charge. You can also check in a larger stroller for no extra charge. It’s worth noting that there are no bassinet facilities for babies on Scoot.
Check-in and airport
Checking in at Athens International Airport was straightforward, and our bags were checked right through to Melbourne and we were given boarding passes for both flights. You have the option to pre-purchase seats (which we never do), and were seated next to one another for both legs of the flight. We had anticipated this, so had packed a change of clothes for our 21 hour Singapore layover and any toiletries and medication we needed into our hand luggage.
We began the walk to our gate…and walked, and walked, and walked. I think it’s the furthest I’ve ever had to travel to get to a gate! There were some travelators provided, however, it took us a good 20 minutes with the kids to get there, so you need to leave plenty of time. I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone with mobility issues unless you’ve pre-arranged assistance. Once you reach this extreme outpost of the airport, there are a couple of cafes to purchase food and a bookstore selling lots of snacks, souvenirs and the usual reading material for the plane.
What to expect on-board Scoot
Boarding was a bit of a mad scramble as it tends to be on budget airlines, but we found our seats with no issues and had plenty of overhead luggage space. The planes were 787 Dreamliners and looked very new and importantly nice and clean! There is no in-flight entertainment or food provided on Scoot, and certainly, nothing to entertain kids such as activity packs.
It is a bring your own device model, where you download the ScootTV app and pay $11 USD per device for unlimited streaming. I had read that on Mac devices you need to do this before boarding, so had organised it all the day before. Unfortunately, though it wouldn’t work on the kids Android Fire tablets, it was fine on our MacBook and iPhone, so they were happy! We had also brought lots of colouring, books and travel games to keep them occupied. WiFi is also available to purchase onboard.
Related reading: Keeping kids entertained on board with no electronics
In terms of food on the flight, you can pre-order but this needs to be done at least 72 hours before your flight. But to be honest we didn’t think the menu looked that great, and it was expensive. So we stocked up with snacks and sandwiches before our flight and ate these with no problems. I was rather glad we did when I saw the flight attendants purchasing sandwiches and fruit at one of the airport cafes prior to boarding!
We arrived in Singapore at 3.55am, quickly made our way through immigration and got a taxi to a hotel that we had pre-booked and where we had organised a late check-out. We slept until around midday, then went out to do some exploring at Gardens by the Bay and have some yummy hawker food.
Related Reading: How to get around in Singapore
It was back out to the airport for the 1.30am flight to Melbourne. As there was no check-in process we quickly sailed through immigration and security, the kids had a quick run around fabulous Changi Airport and we re-boarded the plane. Again we had purchased snacks and sandwiches at the airport, but everyone was exhausted so we slept most of the 7.5 hours to Melbourne. No additional sleeping aids are provided on this flight so we brought our own travel pillows.
FlyScoot long-haul: The verdict
We were really happy with our flight with Scoot – and as expected it’s a case of you get what you pay for. It’s cheap and cheerful, and there are certainly no compromises on safety, but the downside is the length of the flight. It worked for us because we were happy to have a small break and look around in Singapore, but we did arrive absolutely exhausted in Melbourne, with still another flight onwards to New Zealand to come!
Our kids are experienced long-haul travellers so they took it all in their stride, but I wouldn’t recommend this flight for long-haul first-timers and those with very young children or babies. You’re better off paying the extra money and going with a full-service airline with better flight times in my opinion.
Thanks to Kylie for sharing her budget airline experience with us. You can follow more of Kylie’s family adventures here:
OUROVERSEASADVENTURES.COM | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK
Have you had an experience flying long-haul with Scoot? Or any other budget airlines?
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