The Thing About Flying on a Budget

Our trip to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) was our first time to fly on a budget airline. It was one of those major Cebu Pacific seat sales that I chanced upon three months ago while surfing the net. Total for the three of us, my husband Nubs and our four-year old Indie, was just a little over Php14,000. So, together with our good friend Rosene, we grabbed the offer like a lifesaver to a drowning man. And it was a breeze! I could get addicted to online booking, really.

We were to depart at 11 o'clock p.m. at the recently opened NAIA 3. The flow from travel tax payment to check-in to terminal fee payment to immigration was confusing. Order was simply not the order of the day. We had to walk back and forth from one counter to another. It was a good thing we were two hours early and there were very few travelers to congest the place.

Apart from the lateness of the flight which was not very ideal when venturing out of the country with a little person, we soon found out the inconvenient truth about cheap fares. It took Indie but a few minutes on her chair to realize that these seats were certainly designed without comfort in mind. And the legroom? Maybe those people who built planes like this forgot one important thing—passengers do have legs.

Now the pilot seemed to know a great deal about what he was doing. We landed on Vietnam soil smoothly and thirty minutes ahead of schedule. We were quite impressed, aching backs, calves and all.

P.S. After the plane ride, the mere mention of the word "airport" sent Indie into fits of crying and I had to ask her repeatedly what was wrong, to which she finally answered, "The airplane was too small!"

So, is this the end of budget flying for us? It all depends... on the budget. Seriously.