AirAsia X "Premium Flatbed" review - ex-Philippine Airlines (PAL) A330 cabin
I recently needed to fly to Europe (to FRA and return from LHR), and finding it impossible to secure J reward tickets ex-Australia via Velocity, I took a different tack and opted to fly to Kuala Lumpur where I was able to redeem seats ex-KUL on Etihad (via Velocity) with less then two months to departure - not bad!
That left me with how to get to KUL, in style, or at least, without being miserable, and not breaking the bank.
I heard AirAsia had a "premium" product available, abeit 2-2-2.
Above: What the AirAsia "Premium Flatbed" product looks like (from their official page)
So when a weird seating chart came up, which refused to let me select the "window" seat, I became a little suspicious and did some searching
(Note: When you log in after purchase and modify the booking, the correct seating chart comes up)
I did some searching and found that AirAsia has leased two ex-Philippine Airlines A330's:
9M-XBF: Login required | Planespotters.net
9M-XBG: Login required | Planespotters.net
These planes appear to be dedicated to MEL, SYD and ICN (Seoul) routes, and have also recently appeared (substitution?) on routes to Gold Coast and Osaka (KIX). Note that "regular" AirAsia planes also continue to fly to MEL and SYD, so you should check the seat chart and FlightRadar to determine which configuration you will get.
For MEL, D7213 (outbound) and D7212 (inbound) is scheduled consistently on this plane.
Recent sectors of these two ex-PAL planes, from FlightRadar24
I flew D7 213 MEL-KUL (00:10 MEL -> 06:45 KUL) outbound in early July and returned on D7 212 (KUL->MEL 12:30->22:20) two weeks later, both on 9M-XBF
I paid just under $2000 AUD for MEL-KUL-MEL in these seats. Not bad in the current climate, I've paid more to fly to parts of Asia in full service economy..
Airport Experience - MEL departure
Summary of perks:
Priority Check-in - Yes
Priority Boarding - Yes
Priority Luggage - No (doesn't matter, see below)
Express Path - No
Lounge - None (consider Plaza Premium or AMEX lounge in lieu)
I was pleasantly surprised to see a "Premium Flatbed" line at MEL. I was processed pretty fast
In lieu of no lounge being offered, I turned up to the American Express lounge at 9pm, hoping to give that a good try.
It turns out the AMEX lounge currently closes at 10pm!, with last food and beverage at 9:30, making it unsuitable for departures close to midnight.
Despite that, the lounge staff were yet to kick anyone out at 10pm while they did their closing. I left at my own accord around 10:15.
Being in "business class" puts you in boarding group 1, so the first (non-special needs) pax to board.
Onboard hard product
(I've combined photos from both outbound and return sectors here. I was sitting on alternate sides of row 5 - the last J row on 9M-XBF for both)
These two planes are basically exactly as Philippine Airlines left them, and if you look closely, there are some remnants of PAL they haven't covered over yet.
Above: The cabin managers control screen still displays the PAL logo.
Those flying in the back of the bus are big winners, with a more standard 2-4-2 layout instead of the squeezy 3-3-3. There is also a 2-3-2 premium economy (sold as "Premium Flex")
Compared to my usual J seats (Etihad), the PAL J seat (Thomson Vantage XL) is a bit bigger with more room to use.
I did find the seat a bit too firm for my liking, even on the softest setting, making trying to sleep a bit difficult.
AirAsia do hand out a mattress and pillow for use on flight.
The IFE is disabled on these planes, leaving a large 24" reflective surface. I hope you like looking at yourself, as that's all you will see!
I also found that the flight attendant call button(!) and USB-A port did not function.
However, the seat functions like flatbed control and massage do work, as does the AC power.
One thing I noticed - there is a significant amount of wear and tear on these planes.
On the first seat I was in (5G, window), the personal item holder was detached (see above). If you look at the sides of the seats, there are a lot of scuff marks.
It's not something I've seen flying on other airlines.
A non-functional reading light above another seat was covered up with duct tape. On the first (outbound) flight, the J class lavatory was out of action, requiring a walk rearwards to the economy lav. I almost locked myself in the J class lav on the return sector when the opening/closing slider mechanism became very difficult to move!
Above: Wear and tear effects on the seats
On-board food and beverage
The on-board product is exactly the same as economy class - all buy on board.
If you want a hot meal, you will need to order 24-hours prior to departure. You can see the available options at the AirAsia site: Browse AirAsia Food Menu & Pre-book Inflight Meal | airasia and the onboard menu card here: https://www.airasia.com/aa/pdf/inflight-menu/d7-flight.pdf
I had Bukhara Chicken Biryani on the outbound sector and Hyderabadi Vegetable Biryani on the return and enjoyed both.
However, the provided 250mL water was nowhere near enough to put the fire in my mouth afterwards! I recommend buying a few water bottles (+other snacks) to bring on board.
The flight attendants are quite happy for J-class pax to take their meal when they want to. I'm not sure if economy class pax have the same luxury.
Due to limitations on the number of pictures I can post here, I won't show anything, but you can see the AFF AirAsia Economy review to see what is on offer:
Notable is a deal for 3 x Heineken cans for RM 55 ($18AUD). There are no wine options, sadly. They do sell various other alcoholic mixers and pre-mixed drinks (e.g Rum and Coke for RM28).
A savvier operator might be able to buy the right combo of liquids from duty free + airport stores prior to flight (especially at the KUL end)
Airport Experience - KLIA2 arrival
For a "low cost" terminal, KLIA2 isn't bad. It's relatively new (opened 2014) with jet bridges throughout.
However, the walk from the plane to the arrivals hall was very long - I think I must have walked up to 1km just to get to the immigration desk!
There are travellators at regular intervals, but keep this in mind if you are less mobile. I did see a few "golf carts" going past, so enquire with AirAsia if you think you will need them.
The wait at the immigration line was around 20 minutes.
Combined with the long walk, by the time I got through immigration, the last bags had already been delivered to the baggage belt. So the lack of priority bag tagging really didn't make a difference.
If you are a regular traveller to Malaysia, you can enrol through to use the E-Gates, which would sidestep this issue. This enrolment can be done the first time you see a immigration officer.
Kuala Lumpur stopover
KUL is quite a cheap place to do a stopover at.
I stayed, in both instances, at the (Mariott/Bonvoy affiliated) Aloft Kuala Lumpur Sentral for about $110 including breakfast. The hotel has quite large rooms and is well equipped with a roof-top swimming pool and gym facilities. Aloft is right next to the KL Sentral train station (with an undercover connection open up to 10pm).
You can buy airport train tickets (KL Ekspres) for around RM90 / $30AUD. The non-stop journey from Sentral to the airport takes around 30 minutes.
Airport Experience - KLIA2 departure
Priority Check in: Yes (abeit, very busy)
Priority Boarding: Yes
Priority Luggage: Yes (but had no effect at collection)
Extra hand carry luggage: No, same 7kg limit is vigorously enforced for everyone at entrance to the secure area
Express Security / Immigration: No
Lounge: None, pay options available (warning: all lounge options are before security, allow time to pass security and do the long walk to the gate)
I almost missed my flight back home, after snoozing through several alarms in the morning (after doing a 24 hr stretch of LHR-AUH-KUL the previous day on Etihad).
Fortunately, my flight was delayed an hour as they had used the same plane as a stand-in for the morning KUL-MEL-KUL flight.
KLIA2 was very busy, with multiple rows of checkin desk assigned to Air Asia's flights. (You can walk up to any of them).
Premium Flatbed and Flex passengers can use a special check-in counter, but there are plenty of pax in these lines already.
Check-in staff did tag my bags as "XPRESS BAGGAGE", but this did not appear to make a difference in MEL. This may have been due to a baggage system breakdown at MEL (causing all bags to become co-mingled). Either way, my bags came out near the middle of the pile.
The 7kg hand carry luggage limit is vigorously enforced. I ended up doing the "walk of shame" back to the check-in counter to check my hand carry in. At least the Premium Flatbed fares include ample checked baggage experience.
If it wasn't for my late arrival at KLIA2, I probably would have made a much bigger effort to repack my carry-on (or even mitigate by buying a backpack or smaller luggage)
Due to my lateness, I decided not to try any pay lounges and resigned myself to some fast food at Burger King.
Also note: There is a second security check-point just before the actual aircraft gates, and after the main food/beverage/shopping area. This is where they do LAG screening. There are few retail options once you go past the security checkpoint (and depending on where your gate is, this can be a significant distance).
There do not appear to be any lounge options in the gate area, so you will need to allow some time to go to the gate. No "final call" dashes!
To sum it all up
This is a great opportunity to get a "true" lie-flat business class suite hard product at a price the rest of us can afford. If you don't care about the "soft" perks of business class, even better.
Who knows how long AirAsia will keep the planes configured this way (or even how long they will continue leasing these planes) - I understand they will return to their previous 3-3-3 (Y) sardine-can configuration with the upcoming A330neo's.
The fact that they are flying these ex-PAL planes exclusively to Australia and Korea might indicate some awareness on their (AirAsia's) part that Australian consumers may not tolerate (or fit in to!) the sardine-can (3-3-3 in economy) configuration as much as their home (ASEAN) customer base and/or the higher fares charged to Australia will offset the higher-cost-per-seat-mile vs their sardine-cans.
It's a great pairing if you are using the "Asia Stop-over" strategy to secure cheap business class seats to Europe. Even when you add 24-hrs either side to 'buffer' two unrelated bookings, doing so in KUL is quite cheap (approx $200 AUD for hotel+airport train for a single person staying next to KL Sentral train station)
Beware of the limitations of KLIA2 with regard to enforcement of hand carry limits, walking distance from entry/exit to gates, security screening after the main F&B+lounge facilities etc.
Also see
YouTube video: Air Asia X's SURPRISING NEW Business Class (1-2-1 layout) by Jangsu Aviation - the same plane on the Seoul (ICN) flight. This is what came up from me when I was looking for info on the 'non-standard' seating layout.
Matt Graham's AFF AirAsia Quite Zone review. This is the non-flatbed premium product which would put you into the former 'Premium Economy' area on the ex-PAL jets.
Philippine Airline's business class product overview. As you can see, the seat is exactly how it is on PAL, minus the IFE functions, and smaller complementary pillow.
I recently needed to fly to Europe (to FRA and return from LHR), and finding it impossible to secure J reward tickets ex-Australia via Velocity, I took a different tack and opted to fly to Kuala Lumpur where I was able to redeem seats ex-KUL on Etihad (via Velocity) with less then two months to departure - not bad!That left me with how to get to KUL, in style, or at least, without being miserable, and not breaking the bank.
I heard AirAsia had a "premium" product available, abeit 2-2-2.
Above: What the AirAsia "Premium Flatbed" product looks like (from their official page)
So when a weird seating chart came up, which refused to let me select the "window" seat, I became a little suspicious and did some searching
(Note: When you log in after purchase and modify the booking, the correct seating chart comes up)
I did some searching and found that AirAsia has leased two ex-Philippine Airlines A330's:
9M-XBF: Login required | Planespotters.net
9M-XBG: Login required | Planespotters.net
These planes appear to be dedicated to MEL, SYD and ICN (Seoul) routes, and have also recently appeared (substitution?) on routes to Gold Coast and Osaka (KIX). Note that "regular" AirAsia planes also continue to fly to MEL and SYD, so you should check the seat chart and FlightRadar to determine which configuration you will get.
For MEL, D7213 (outbound) and D7212 (inbound) is scheduled consistently on this plane.
Recent sectors of these two ex-PAL planes, from FlightRadar24
I flew D7 213 MEL-KUL (00:10 MEL -> 06:45 KUL) outbound in early July and returned on D7 212 (KUL->MEL 12:30->22:20) two weeks later, both on 9M-XBF
I paid just under $2000 AUD for MEL-KUL-MEL in these seats. Not bad in the current climate, I've paid more to fly to parts of Asia in full service economy..
Airport Experience - MEL departure
Summary of perks:
Priority Check-in - Yes
Priority Boarding - Yes
Priority Luggage - No (doesn't matter, see below)
Express Path - No
Lounge - None (consider Plaza Premium or AMEX lounge in lieu)
I was pleasantly surprised to see a "Premium Flatbed" line at MEL. I was processed pretty fast
In lieu of no lounge being offered, I turned up to the American Express lounge at 9pm, hoping to give that a good try.
It turns out the AMEX lounge currently closes at 10pm!, with last food and beverage at 9:30, making it unsuitable for departures close to midnight.
Despite that, the lounge staff were yet to kick anyone out at 10pm while they did their closing. I left at my own accord around 10:15.
Being in "business class" puts you in boarding group 1, so the first (non-special needs) pax to board.
Onboard hard product
(I've combined photos from both outbound and return sectors here. I was sitting on alternate sides of row 5 - the last J row on 9M-XBF for both)
These two planes are basically exactly as Philippine Airlines left them, and if you look closely, there are some remnants of PAL they haven't covered over yet.
Above: The cabin managers control screen still displays the PAL logo.
Those flying in the back of the bus are big winners, with a more standard 2-4-2 layout instead of the squeezy 3-3-3. There is also a 2-3-2 premium economy (sold as "Premium Flex")
Compared to my usual J seats (Etihad), the PAL J seat (Thomson Vantage XL) is a bit bigger with more room to use.
I did find the seat a bit too firm for my liking, even on the softest setting, making trying to sleep a bit difficult.
AirAsia do hand out a mattress and pillow for use on flight.
The IFE is disabled on these planes, leaving a large 24" reflective surface. I hope you like looking at yourself, as that's all you will see!
I also found that the flight attendant call button(!) and USB-A port did not function.
However, the seat functions like flatbed control and massage do work, as does the AC power.
One thing I noticed - there is a significant amount of wear and tear on these planes.
On the first seat I was in (5G, window), the personal item holder was detached (see above). If you look at the sides of the seats, there are a lot of scuff marks.
It's not something I've seen flying on other airlines.
A non-functional reading light above another seat was covered up with duct tape. On the first (outbound) flight, the J class lavatory was out of action, requiring a walk rearwards to the economy lav. I almost locked myself in the J class lav on the return sector when the opening/closing slider mechanism became very difficult to move!
Above: Wear and tear effects on the seats
On-board food and beverage
The on-board product is exactly the same as economy class - all buy on board.
If you want a hot meal, you will need to order 24-hours prior to departure. You can see the available options at the AirAsia site: Browse AirAsia Food Menu & Pre-book Inflight Meal | airasia and the onboard menu card here: https://www.airasia.com/aa/pdf/inflight-menu/d7-flight.pdf
I had Bukhara Chicken Biryani on the outbound sector and Hyderabadi Vegetable Biryani on the return and enjoyed both.
However, the provided 250mL water was nowhere near enough to put the fire in my mouth afterwards! I recommend buying a few water bottles (+other snacks) to bring on board.
The flight attendants are quite happy for J-class pax to take their meal when they want to. I'm not sure if economy class pax have the same luxury.
Due to limitations on the number of pictures I can post here, I won't show anything, but you can see the AFF AirAsia Economy review to see what is on offer:
Notable is a deal for 3 x Heineken cans for RM 55 ($18AUD). There are no wine options, sadly. They do sell various other alcoholic mixers and pre-mixed drinks (e.g Rum and Coke for RM28).
A savvier operator might be able to buy the right combo of liquids from duty free + airport stores prior to flight (especially at the KUL end)
Airport Experience - KLIA2 arrival
For a "low cost" terminal, KLIA2 isn't bad. It's relatively new (opened 2014) with jet bridges throughout.
However, the walk from the plane to the arrivals hall was very long - I think I must have walked up to 1km just to get to the immigration desk!
There are travellators at regular intervals, but keep this in mind if you are less mobile. I did see a few "golf carts" going past, so enquire with AirAsia if you think you will need them.
The wait at the immigration line was around 20 minutes.
Combined with the long walk, by the time I got through immigration, the last bags had already been delivered to the baggage belt. So the lack of priority bag tagging really didn't make a difference.
If you are a regular traveller to Malaysia, you can enrol through to use the E-Gates, which would sidestep this issue. This enrolment can be done the first time you see a immigration officer.
Kuala Lumpur stopover
KUL is quite a cheap place to do a stopover at.
I stayed, in both instances, at the (Mariott/Bonvoy affiliated) Aloft Kuala Lumpur Sentral for about $110 including breakfast. The hotel has quite large rooms and is well equipped with a roof-top swimming pool and gym facilities. Aloft is right next to the KL Sentral train station (with an undercover connection open up to 10pm).
You can buy airport train tickets (KL Ekspres) for around RM90 / $30AUD. The non-stop journey from Sentral to the airport takes around 30 minutes.
Airport Experience - KLIA2 departure
Priority Check in: Yes (abeit, very busy)
Priority Boarding: Yes
Priority Luggage: Yes (but had no effect at collection)
Extra hand carry luggage: No, same 7kg limit is vigorously enforced for everyone at entrance to the secure area
Express Security / Immigration: No
Lounge: None, pay options available (warning: all lounge options are before security, allow time to pass security and do the long walk to the gate)
I almost missed my flight back home, after snoozing through several alarms in the morning (after doing a 24 hr stretch of LHR-AUH-KUL the previous day on Etihad).
Fortunately, my flight was delayed an hour as they had used the same plane as a stand-in for the morning KUL-MEL-KUL flight.
KLIA2 was very busy, with multiple rows of checkin desk assigned to Air Asia's flights. (You can walk up to any of them).
Premium Flatbed and Flex passengers can use a special check-in counter, but there are plenty of pax in these lines already.
Check-in staff did tag my bags as "XPRESS BAGGAGE", but this did not appear to make a difference in MEL. This may have been due to a baggage system breakdown at MEL (causing all bags to become co-mingled). Either way, my bags came out near the middle of the pile.
The 7kg hand carry luggage limit is vigorously enforced. I ended up doing the "walk of shame" back to the check-in counter to check my hand carry in. At least the Premium Flatbed fares include ample checked baggage experience.
If it wasn't for my late arrival at KLIA2, I probably would have made a much bigger effort to repack my carry-on (or even mitigate by buying a backpack or smaller luggage)
Due to my lateness, I decided not to try any pay lounges and resigned myself to some fast food at Burger King.
Also note: There is a second security check-point just before the actual aircraft gates, and after the main food/beverage/shopping area. This is where they do LAG screening. There are few retail options once you go past the security checkpoint (and depending on where your gate is, this can be a significant distance).
There do not appear to be any lounge options in the gate area, so you will need to allow some time to go to the gate. No "final call" dashes!
To sum it all up
This is a great opportunity to get a "true" lie-flat business class suite hard product at a price the rest of us can afford. If you don't care about the "soft" perks of business class, even better.
Who knows how long AirAsia will keep the planes configured this way (or even how long they will continue leasing these planes) - I understand they will return to their previous 3-3-3 (Y) sardine-can configuration with the upcoming A330neo's.
The fact that they are flying these ex-PAL planes exclusively to Australia and Korea might indicate some awareness on their (AirAsia's) part that Australian consumers may not tolerate (or fit in to!) the sardine-can (3-3-3 in economy) configuration as much as their home (ASEAN) customer base and/or the higher fares charged to Australia will offset the higher-cost-per-seat-mile vs their sardine-cans.
It's a great pairing if you are using the "Asia Stop-over" strategy to secure cheap business class seats to Europe. Even when you add 24-hrs either side to 'buffer' two unrelated bookings, doing so in KUL is quite cheap (approx $200 AUD for hotel+airport train for a single person staying next to KL Sentral train station)
Beware of the limitations of KLIA2 with regard to enforcement of hand carry limits, walking distance from entry/exit to gates, security screening after the main F&B+lounge facilities etc.
Also see
YouTube video: Air Asia X's SURPRISING NEW Business Class (1-2-1 layout) by Jangsu Aviation - the same plane on the Seoul (ICN) flight. This is what came up from me when I was looking for info on the 'non-standard' seating layout.
Matt Graham's AFF AirAsia Quite Zone review. This is the non-flatbed premium product which would put you into the former 'Premium Economy' area on the ex-PAL jets.
Philippine Airline's business class product overview. As you can see, the seat is exactly how it is on PAL, minus the IFE functions, and smaller complementary pillow.
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