Which is the best airline to fly from Australia to Bali?

VA vs LCC/JQ. The full service is one thing, but with VA, do they have a higher responsibility to provide the flight home than vs LCC.? (Other flights, hotel overnight delays, etc) I always thought this was the VA/QF value over LCC.



Cheers
It depends on the LCC, but JQ/QF/VA… there’s no difference. Most of those are going to reaccommodate you on the next available service. JQ has been known to book pax on QF.

Scoot and some other LCCs on the other hand don’t even refund you if they cancel, just next service or a credit voucher. Although you have some protections under Aussie consumer law which will override their contracts of carriage if you have purchased your tickets ex Australia (as opposed to say buying JQ one way and Air Asia back).
 
It depends on the LCC, but JQ/QF/VA… there’s no difference. Most of those are going to reaccommodate you on the next available service. JQ has been known to book pax on QF.

Scoot and some other LCCs on the other hand don’t even refund you if they cancel, just next service or a credit voucher. Although you have some protections under Aussie consumer law which will override their contracts of carriage if you have purchased your tickets ex Australia (as opposed to say buying JQ one way and Air Asia back).
Our one experience with Scoot and cancelled flights resulted in the whole planeload being put onto an old SQ B777 pulled out of retirement. This meant we were upgraded from ScootPlus Premium Economy style seats to the old SQ Regional Business class. The entertainment system was operating and we got full service, minus alcohol, by the SQ cabin staff. We got a three course economy style meal which was much better than the Scoot market stall version. This was probably due to the special circumstances of the Scoot B787 fleet being mostly grounded due to the problem wit the RR engines.
 
I love flying business class no matter the airline, but I will always prefer a daytime flight to a red eye. So that means that flying to and from Adelaide, it's business to Bali and Jetstar during the day back. Even the worst airline daytime flight is better than 4 hours sleep and all the airport cough in Business. Who needs a champagne and caviar at 2 am? Not me.
 
I love flying business class no matter the airline, but I will always prefer a daytime flight to a red eye. So that means that flying to and from Adelaide, it's business to Bali and Jetstar during the day back. Even the worst airline daytime flight is better than 4 hours sleep and all the airport cough in Business. Who needs a champagne and caviar at 2 am? Not me.
Cavier? Now that would be something especially on VA or QF.although I suspect they don't even know what Cavier is!! ...(that said nothing wrong with 2am drinkies and soggy parmi somethingarather )..🫣🤭
 
On what do you base that, Daver6?

General history of Indonesian based airlines I suppose. In general they've had a pretty sketchy record. If you read some of the reports from Air Asia on incidents in Australia airspace, I'm not filled with confidence when it comes to the decision making of their pilots.
 
General history of Indonesian based airlines I suppose. In general they've had a pretty sketchy record. If you read some of the reports from Air Asia on incidents in Australia airspace, I'm not filled with confidence when it comes to the decision making of their pilots.
Agree. Although I’m ok with Garuda, especially their big jets. I perhaps naively hope they’ll have their pilots with the most experience protecting their assets.

I know GA has had a patchy record for intra-asia and domestic flights, but the conditions they encounter can be quite different to Australia, particularly with bad weather and storms.
 
General history of Indonesian based airlines I suppose. In general they've had a pretty sketchy record. If you read some of the reports from Air Asia on incidents in Australia airspace, I'm not filled with confidence when it comes to the decision making of their pilots.
Blimey what source is this from? Only incidents I hear of apart from a well documented one where they definitely had an "interesting" approach to Perth in severe weather and being to low, is many stories of drunken yobs on Air Asia flights to and from Australia shouting abuse at pax and crew! 🫤
 
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Blimey what source is this from? Only incidents I hear of apart from a well.documented one on approach to PErth in severe weather being too low, is stories of drunken yobs on Air Asia flights to and from Australia shouting abuse at pax and crew! 🫤
I know it's not scientific to generalize from a series of one, but my recent flight from Perth to Bali return on a Citilink 320Neo was absolutely faultless. I couldn't recommend them highly enough considering they were exactly half the price of Jetstar.
 
Agree. Although I’m ok with Garuda, especially their big jets. I perhaps naively hope they’ll have their pilots with the most experience protecting their assets.

I know GA has had a patchy record for intra-asia and domestic flights, but the conditions they encounter can be quite different to Australia, particularly with bad weather and storms.
Agree about GA. They've cleaned up their act.

Blimey what source is this from? Only incidents I hear of apart from a well documented one where they definitely had an "interesting" approach to Perth in severe weather and being to low, is many stories of drunken yobs on Air Asia flights to and from Australia shouting abuse at pax and crew! 🫤
ATSB reports.
 
Agree about GA. They've cleaned up their act.


ATSB reports.
Yeah although I believe (I could.be wrong) that most relate to around 7 years ago or so? I'm.not saying they are brilliant by any means but if there were real concerns they would not be allowed to fly into Australia.
 
Agree about GA. They've cleaned up their act.


ATSB reports.

I’d also put citilink in the same category as GA (good record and same training / practices as their parent company)
Lionair / airasia etc wouldn’t have the same confidence in.
 
You are to some extent correct with that observation. GA and QG probably have slightly better systems in place, but they still have some of the same cultural issues as the other aviation organisations:
- selection is not always based on merit, it may be based on connections and money.
- the idea of saving face means that students don’t fail and instructors don’t have to do retraining (because they instructed flawlessly first time…). Is that because the student is proficient, or because they’re given the answers before a test/sim? I’ll leave you to ponder that.
- massive coughpit gradients exist.
- the maintenance and air traffic systems face many of the same issues.

What those two airlines have as an advantage over the Lion group (Lion, Batik, Super Air Jet, Wings), is they didn’t expand rapidly over the past ten years. That expansion created challenges such as lesser levels of experience amongst all parts of the company (not just the drivers up front…). However, it’s not all smooth sailing as GA has faced serious funding questions and has made significant changes to its operations.

Now, I’ve flown Lion, Super Air Jet and Citilink many times over the past few years. The number of landings equalled the number of takeoffs, so who am I to complain. Didn’t feel particularly happy whilst on board, but as with aviation in general, the odds are still in your favour.

TLDR: aviation in Indonesia is not as safe as Australia, for many reasons.

Agree about GA. They've cleaned up their act.

@Daver6: have they really? Or have they just been more lucky recently? Did you really mean they ‘appear’ to have cleaned up their act? I can’t say one way or t’other, but plenty of structural and cultural challenges likely still exist.
 
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Haven't heard about Citilink so far. So was intrigued and made a dummy booking PER-DPS return - the final price after adding 20kg bag and a meal/snack was AU$410 :D Noiceeee :D I'd think those based @ PER can actually make use of this for a quick hop to Indonesia.

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Yep, it's a no-frills service but the A320neos are new and the staff are super friendly. Plus, on the way home you get the VIP treatment at Denpasar airport because it's a secondary hub with its own check-in desk downstairs.
 

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