Before going into this AirAsia X A330-300 Premium Flatbed review, I honestly had no idea what the difference was between AirAsia and AirAsia X. I mean, it’s essentially the same airline, with the same livery, owned by the same parent company. I didn’t get it.
You see, here in the US, applying an “x” to something implies that it’s “extreme” and / or super rad. It wasn’t my fault that I couldn’t help to think that I was about to fly on the raddest flight of my life in the moments leading up to it. Exciting stuff!
D7372
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (KUL) – Taipei, Taiwan (TPE)
Sunday, March 1, 2020
Aircraft: A330-343
Registration: 9M-XXD
Duration: 4 hours 7 minutes
Seat: 2K (Premium Flatbed)
AirAsia A330-300 (UFC livery) side view illustration by Norebbo.comOur route from Kuala Lumpur to Taipei today as D70372
My AirAsia X A330-300 Premium Flatbed experience from Kuala Lumpur to Taipei
A rad flight calls for an equally rad review, so tensions were high as I was getting footage for this one. However, there were no fireballs or explosions involved, and I didn’t even have to say the word “bro” once.
Arrival at Kuala Lumpur International Airport
My arriving flight from Penang was approximately 15 minutes early, which was nice since I didn’t have a lot of time to waste before this flight up to Taipei. At least that’s what I thought. I actually arrived so early that this flight wasn’t even listed on the departures board yet.
Yup – I’m on my way up to Taipei in AirAsia X business class! Oops. I mean Premium Flatbed class. My bad.I know. Most of you are probably looking forward to my EVA Air 777-300ER premium economy review instead, but please have patience. We gotta do this one before we can do that one.
The AirAsia X ground experience at KUL
Unfortunately, there’s not much of an “experience” to tell you about. AirAsia X does not have lounges for premium / business class passengers, so there really wasn’t much to do other than just meandering around the terminal as I would be for an economy class flight.
For me, quality airport time is defined as “roaming the corridors and seeing what I can find.” Looks like I found some AirAsia planes. Who woulda thunk it?I also found a really nice looking airport terminal. This is sweet!Somewhere on the Internet there’s another AirAsia X review showing a photo of me taking a picture of a guy looking at people who are looking at the departure board. Yup, we were stacked deep here this morning.There’s some funky orange carpet, duty free up the wazoo, oh – and a security checkpoint at the end of this that I’m not going to show you (not because I’m mean – I’m just doing my best to stay out of Malaysian jail, that’s all).It’s gonna be gate P4 this morning, and I’ve got two choices here: 1). Do I keep walking and exploring in order to satisfy my inner aviation nerd? Or 2). Do I venture inside and take a seat like a normal human being?Me (being a normal human).Check this out! Can you name any other airport in the world that has theater-style seating in the gate areas?I’ve never seen anything like this before, and it makes total sense. Why aren’t all airports doing this?!
The boarding process
They start at the boarding process exactly on time. And that’s a really good thing considering how early I arrived this flight. I wasn’t keen on waiting very much longer!
Getting one step closer to home today.Somehow I lost the footage of having my boarding pass pass scanned, but honestly – you didn’t miss much.The scanner beeped, the nice lady smiled, and…well…here I am.
Premium Flatbed / business class seat overview
For the record, I’m probably going to get a lot of slack for referring to the Premium Flatbed seats as “business class”. But, let’s face it – this is a fully lie flat business class seat, similar to the ones you’d have to pay thousands of dollars for on other airlines. Even though air AsiaX doesn’t explicitly label it as “business class”, I do. So there.
This particular A330 featured a special UFC livery, which, despite being greeted by a very friendly AirAsia X cabin crew, left me thinking how interesting it is that the UFC is so big in this part of the world. Yeah, I’m easily distracted.According to Wikipedia, the UFC in Malaysia…wait…I mean…check out this premium cabin!It’s a 2-2-2 layout featuring 12 seats and is approximately 48.4% of the size of a regulation UFC octagon.AirAsia X Premium Flatbed seats. I’m diggin’ the red!The shivers that go up and down your spine when you realize that your shoes match the seats.A quick peek back to the Hot Seats. Odd name considering that the Premium Flatbed seats are way hotter.Am I admiring my shoes? Or the impressive leg room?Do you have any idea how good it feels to know that you’re gonna have an entire business class cabin to yourself? Being almost alone up here did seem odd though – economy looked to be nearly 100% full today, and I’m not exactly sure how I lucked out hard enough to have this nearly all to myself. Basically, paying business class was worth it.Remember the good ‘ol days when the virus was spreading slow enough to warrant printing glossy inserts highlighting the current hot spots in the world?It did remind me to put on my mask, but at the time, I was more concerned about staying up to date with the latest cat memes on Twitter.Yeah, they may be a little crusty, but there are indeed electrical outlets here in AirAsia X business class. Let’s just say that I’m glad that all my devices are fully charged already….Wouldn’t be an AirAsia X A330-300 Premium Flatbed review without a proper shot of the safety card I guess.Shhhhh!
It’s important to note that, while these do seem to be fully legitimate lie flat business class seats, they aren’t the best “budget” lie flat seats in Asia. Did you read my review of the Zipair 787-8 Full Flat experience? If you did, you may not be all that impressed by these AirAsia X seats.
The departure
Not only did they get the boarding process started on time, actually managed to get us pushed off the gate exactly when they said they would. It’s hard not to appreciate that sort of determined punctuality.
Hmph. Another bloodsport livery!There’s just gotta be tons of funny and clever things to say about airline promoting a sport which involves one human beating the snot out another, but I used up all my creativity with that octagon stat earlier.“Mmmvvvvvvvvvvvmmm…” (my lame attempt at a compelling Rolls Royce aircraft engine impression)So long Malaysia!I didn’t get to see as much of you as I wanted, but I’ll definitely be back.
In-flight entertainment
One of the first things you’ll notice about these seats is the fact that there are no video screens built into them. Fear not! Video entertainment is available – though in a slightly less than ideal way.
Video entertainment comes in the form of Android-based tablets. You also get noise canceling headphones that look as if they’ve been strapped to many a noggin in the past.Just curious: Can viruses be passed through the ear canal?
The food
Having experienced the best airline meal of my life in an AirAsia A320 Hot Seat, my expectations were extremely high going into this hop up to Taipei.
For the record, I had the exact same choices for a meal that I had on the previous flight. My selection was made on the AirAsia website when I booked the ticket, so I didn’t even have to do anything once on board. The food just came to me without even asking for it.
Glutinous rice.You know, with everything being so proudly gluten free these days, it kinda seemed as if I was cracking open a carton of unfiltered cigarettes or something.I felt like such a badass.To be honest I had no idea what glutinous rice was before I selected it. It definitely looks decent, but…I can’t say that I enjoyed this all that much. Y’all know I like rice of course, but gluten is far too gooey and sticky for my tastes.See that? That’s the look of a disappointed man right there. I’ve cooked bad rice before, but this was on a completely different level. Mental note: never (ever) choose the glutinous option. Whatever it may be.
Seat comfort
The fact that I had the entire forward cabin nearly all to myself probably helped a lot towards making this feel like a very luxurious experience. But the seat itself was still pretty darn comfortable.
If it wasn’t obvious by now, AirAsia X premium seating is fairly basic. Extra bonus points for the super-fire red blankets though.Technically, these are angled lie flat seats. I know it looks like a stretcher they use to carry away the loser of a bloody UFC match, but don’t let that distract you. They’re flat enough.Privacy is pretty good as well thanks to the cocoon-like shell of the seats. Don’t get cocky though – they’re not that private, so you’re still going to have to behave yourself.
The lavatory
Because no review of a lie flat business class product would be complete without pictures of the toilet, here’s a quick overview of the forward lavatory:
The sink. Riveting, isn’t it?At least it was clean.“Where the heck is all the gold plated trim??”
The descent and landing into Taipei
At the time of this writing (October 2020) AirAsia X is out of money and has announced plans to significantly downsize. That’s extremely unfortunate considering how good of an airline this is, and I wish them nothing but the best on their eventual road to recovery.
That being said, I had nothing but really good feelings as I was sitting there in seat 2K for the remainder of this flight. I already knew that I’d be flying AirAsia and AirAsia X on future trips to Asia – although I wasn’t aware at just how bad the pandemic would be hurting them over the coming months.
So – what’s my final verdict about AirAsia X Premium Flatbed seats? Well, Assuming you can find a good deal, it’s absolutely worth it. As long as you avoid the glutinous rice of course.The cabin crew and video entertainment were ok, and the seat was perfectly fine.This definitely isn’t a product competitive with, say, Cathay Pacific 777-300ER business class, but considering how much lower the fares are, it’s a solid option that I would easily consider again.Welcome to Taipei!Looks like the competition has already arrived.Here I am standing around trying to suck up the ambiance of being in a premium airline cabin for the last time without looking like I’m standing around trying to suck up the ambiance of being in a premium airline cabin.Sucking up complete. Later dudes!
Pros and cons of the AirAsia X Premium Flatbed experience
Normally I have to dig pretty deep to come up with a list of cons about a flight experience involving a fully lie flat seat. However, it’s going to be especially easy in this particular AirAsia X review.
No, this wasn’t a bad experience. At all. The issue is that AirAsia X is a discount airline that (by design), cuts costs wherever possible. That means that their Premium Flatbed product is a little different than what you would expect on a mainline carrier. Let me explain…
Pros
The bang for the buck on AirAsia X is unbeatable. The ability to get a lie flat seat on a 4 1/2 hour international flight for under $500 it’s pretty darn amazing. I’d even go as far as to say that it’s totally sick.
Even though AirAsia X doesn’t advertise these as traditional business class seats, they are still quite nice. As mentioned, they are fully life flat, and quite comfy. Even in the upright position.
The cabin crew on this particular flight to Taipei was exemplary.
Cons
Food and drinks are not free on AirAsia X (not even if you’re sitting in a premium seat). Yes, they do serve hot meals, but you have to pay extra if you want to eat.
Even though the seats were extremely comfortable, they were slightly dated. The most notable downside of the seats was the fact that there were no built-in video screens.
Video and audio entertainment is complementary, but it comes in the form of tablets handed out by the cabin crew.
At the time of this writing, there are no lounges available for AirAsia X premium passengers. Sorry, you’re just gonna have to schlep it out with the common folk out in the terminal while you wait for your flight.
Nothing wrong about it Loren! I’m getting really desperate to return to the skies too – no matter what it takes. Anyway, let’s just hope AirAsia survives! They are really struggling right now and I hope this isn’t the end of the road for them.
Loren
Is it wrong that nowadays I’d take a seat on a United airlines flight where my knees were at my ears in a heartbeat?
And honestly I want to fly this airline more to try the food since I’ve still never seen you so excited about a meal
Scott (SANspotter)
Nothing wrong about it Loren! I’m getting really desperate to return to the skies too – no matter what it takes. Anyway, let’s just hope AirAsia survives! They are really struggling right now and I hope this isn’t the end of the road for them.