Starting Points: low-cost carriers

Mar 17, 2010

Short Hops, Low Fares, Around Asia

Malaysia-based Air Asia flies to major tourist destinations like Bali and Siem Reap.

Frank Pinckers for NYT, Ahmad Yusni, via European Pressphoto Agency, Stuart Isett for NYT Malaysia-based Air Asia flies to major tourist destinations like Bali and Siem Reap.

A long, long time ago — way back in the mid-1990s — when I was living in Southeast Asia, getting around the region was a frustrating process. If I wanted to visit Cambodia, I’d take a bus from wherever I happened to be — usually Bangkok or Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam — and though it never cost more than $6, the daylong ordeal was always so painful I swore I’d never do it again. Then, a few months later, I’d do it again.

Sure, there were flights, but a round-trip to Phnom Penh, the capital, or to Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat, could cost $200, more than I made in a week back then. Once, I even flew to Taiwan, a nearly $500 expense. How I covered it I don’t remember.

Today, however, flights within Asia can cost as little as a long-haul bus, thanks to the well-established network of low-cost carriers — or L.C.C.’s — that stretches from the Middle East to Southeast Asia. Like their European counterparts, these are generally no-frills experiences, so don’t expect a pillow, a free beverage or a guaranteed window seat in the exit row. But since you’re spending about $50 to get from, say, Mumbai to Kozhikode (it’s in India’s Kerala state) on JetLite, you can’t really complain.

Okay, maybe you can complain a little — about the booking process. In general, it’s fairly simple and very familiar: Go to an individual airline’s Web site, punch in your dates and destination, keep an eye out for hidden fees including luggage and taxes, which can cost as much as the base fare, and pay with a credit card. So far, so good.

The problem is that with dozens of airlines now serving Asia — and often competing with so-called legacy airlines on many routes — booking an L.C.C. flight can be a dizzying, laborious process. Some airlines fly domestic only, like Nok Air (Thailand), Jeju Air (Korea) and Air Do (Japan). Others fly only internationally, like Viva Macau (which connects Macao to Japan, Indonesia, Australia and elsewhere). And others, like Malaysia-based Air Asia, do both, connecting hubs like Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta and Hong Kong with little-known locales like Bintulu, Sandakan and Tawau in Malaysia.

Many have silly names like IndiGo, but as I learned while flying low-cost carriers around Europe in 2007, sometimes the silliest have the best service. And a handful, like Jeju Air and Air Do, don’t provide full English versions of their Web sites. I presume they’re passing the translation savings on to the consumer.

There is, unfortunately, no all-in-one, perfect meta-search engine that will calculate and let you book a low-cost route around Asia. But, fortunately, there is a two-step process that can help ensure that you find the best route at the best price.

The first thing to do is get the lay of the L.C.C. land. Where can you actually fly to? And which airlines will take you there?

A trio of Web sites — WhichBudget.com, FlyBudget.com and FlyLowCostAirlines.org — aims to answer exactly these questions. They all do almost exactly the same thing: Enter one location (anywhere in the world, not just Asia), and they’ll tell you which low-cost carriers fly directly from there, and the various destinations. That’s it! It seems like a simple thing, but with low-cost carriers adding and deleting routes throughout the world, it’s not.

So, from Kuala Lumpur, according to WhichBudget: Air Asia flies to Dhaka, Bangladesh; Shenzhen, China; Vientiane, Laos; and dozens of other places; Cebu Pacific flies to 15 destinations in the Philippines; Tiger Airways goes to Vietnam and Perth, Australia; Lion Air flies to Jakarta. For those with a low budget but high sense of adventure, the beauty here is seeing all the places that you can possibly get to cheaply.

Which should you use? I like WhichBudget’s interface best, while FlyBudget seems to miss out on some of the more obvious routes. Ultimately, they’re all very similar, and you’ll wind up using whichever you’re most comfortable with.

The one thing you won’t use them for is searching timetables and airfares and booking flights. They don’t do that at all.

But don’t go running to Travelocity, Expedia, Orbitz, Kayak or Vayama. The standbys don’t usually search the Asian low-cost-carrier routes. Even ITASoftware.com, which is supposed to be plugged into airline booking systems better than any other site, doesn’t see Air Asia.

Instead, visit SkyScanner.net, Momondo.com or WeGo.com, all of which let you comparison-shop by route and price, and among airlines both low-cost and traditional. Even though the companies are scattered all over the world (SkyScanner in Scotland and Poland; Momondo in Denmark; WeGo in Singapore), they’re all fairly similar with regard to design and functionality. Indeed, they probably look a lot like the travel booking site you already use.

But these sites are far more aware of the low-cost-carrier world, and routinely find fares that traditional booking sites don’t. For a round-trip flight to Taipei from Bangkok, for example, all three sites recently turned up a result from Air Asia for around $190 (Momondo had it for $185), which is a lot better than what I spent in 1997 — and a lot better than the $289 KLM flight turned up by Kayak and Expedia. Even the Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh route was a better deal — about $100 now — although it’s served by the same carrier as ever, Vietnam Airlines.

At the same time, none of these search engines is perfect, especially when it comes to finding indirect or unorthodox bookings. If, say, you wanted to fly from Kuala Lumpur to Seoul, Momondo and WeGo suggest a nonstop flight on Malaysia Airlines for $360, and SkyScanner wants you to spend $464 to fly Air China to Pusan, a three-and-a-half-hour train ride south of Seoul.

But according to WhichBudget, Asian low-cost carriers connect Malaysia and South Korea through four locations: Bangkok and Cebu, Kalibo and Manila in the Philippines. By booking multiple legs with, say, Cebu Pacific, you’d spend roughly $250. And though it might mean a lengthy layover, you’d save more than $100, a sum that can go a long way in many parts of Asia.

So, the short version: Check WhichBudget.com to get a sense of who goes where. Then search SkyScanner and Momondo for the flight itself. If they fail to turn up a route that you know exists, go right to the airline’s own Web site.

Of course, travelers should remember that low-cost airlines are more likely to tack on fees for things that traditional airlines include automatically, like checking baggage and offering snacks. Although the number of traditional airlines that still offer these freebies is speedily dwindling to zero.