2.5 ⭐️ budget carrier from china? - Spring airlines

I booked a flight on Spring Airlines - a Chinese carrier that I’ve not heard before & was worried it would be an uncomfortable flight after reading the reviews calling it “the Chinese Ryanair” & it was rated 2.5⭐️ on TripAdvisor 😨

My flight was $180 after adding 20kg baggage & in flight meal & I thought it was worth its value!

Note: I bought my ticket about 3 weeks in advance so prices were a little steep all around.

Here are my thoughts:

✅ legroom was pretty wide, in fact wider than many SG budget carriers (look at how much space I have)

😋 in flight meal was delicious! I ordered beef rice and thought the overall meal felt like a home cooked meal. The beef was really tender although I wish there were more pieces but at the price of ~SGD$5 I can’t complain. Rice was well cooked- it was soft and fresh unlike some in flight meals where rice often feels hard and not cooked right. The serving was also larger than I expected (I was full and couldn’t finish)

💦 cleanliness was 💯. I saw the staff constantly cleaning the toilets which is uncommon for budget carriers- I had to hold my breath in the toilet on my Scoot flight to my destination 🤢

🚽 the toilet was also very spacious which was great because I’ve had horrible experiences squeezing in budget carrier’s toilets

❌ your usual cabin sized luggage cannot fit their planes’ baggage compartment. I only learnt this at the check in counter and checked in my usual “carry on” luggage, which thankfully I already bought a 20kg checkin. A guy in front of me boarding the flight had issues with his luggage because he didn’t know that it didn’t fit the plane 😨 he had to pay to get his luggage on board.

❌ the table was really small and I fumbled while eating my meal as you can see my food tray was much bigger than the table. But i thought this was just a small issue that I got around.

❌ the seats had no reclining function. But I have no complains because I had enough legroom and the seats were comfortable.

❌ they only accept payment via chinese apps (Alipay & WeChat) - which would not work for foreigners. You’ll need to have RMB on hand if you’re purchasing anything on board. Lucky I brought some cash on hand in case the apps failed on me, so I managed to pay for my orange juice 🤭 but! The kind airline crew offered to pay for me first and suggested I pay her after the plane lands which was really nice of her ☺️

I guess the reviews were just really biased and after this experience, I can safely say I will definitely take Spring Airlines again!

#travel #travelrecommendation #springairlines #china #chinatravel #flightexperience