Intra-Asia 2015 Part 3: V Air

[Carfield]

Intra Asia 2015 Part Three: V-Air



Part three will talk about a brand new Taiwanese LCC, V Air, which is basically the low cost arm of TransAsia Airways. Its fleet is limited to one A321 now, with another A320 joining soon. It flies daily to Bangkok Don Mueang airport, as well a few times weekly to Siem Reap, Chiang Mai, and now Macau. The branding is actually very smart, and its mascot is a cute bear called “V Bear.” The crews are new young recruits, and at least its brand is more Taiwanese than Tigerair Taiwan. It basically combines many of the elements that young people like nowadays and there is no doubt that it is targeting the young independent traveler market. I actually went out of my way to fly V Air because I was very attracted to the brand. Despite the flight itself is actually fine, there is one important issue that I can’t overlook and based on that factor, I unfortunately can’t recommend V Air. It has nothing to do with TransAsia, but rather a minor aspect that some of you will possibly call me a bit paranoid. I can live with paying addition for every tiny thing, but hygiene and safety cannot be compromised regardless of being a full service, LCC, or ULCC carrier.

I also apologize for the lack of picture of the actual aircraft B-22608 because of the early morning departure hours and the poor glass condition at both TPE and DMK.

April 22, 2015
ZV 5 TPE-DMK Lv0640 Arr0935 Airbus A321-200 Sharklet B-22608

After a short taxi ride form Novotel Taoyuan airport, I arrived Taoyuan’s Terminal one around 4:45am, about two hours prior to departure. The airport was already pretty busy, as many charter and LCC flights depart in the early morning hours. Unfortunately many food outlets, restaurants, and shops both inside and outside of security remain closed. To no surprise, the queue for V Air’s Bangkok flights already stretched towards the TransAsia area. There were basically four counters opened, which were all staffed by TransAsia Airways uniformed agents. One of the counters was dedicated to tour group, which was apparently still popular for Taiwanese markets, and one of the three other agents left around 5:15am to open up the gate. With two agents, the wait was fairly long but with nowhere to go, everyone was fairly busy.



Queue


Check-in:



All the cute V-Bear branded signs



The agent was pretty efficient and friendly, despite of the long queue.

For this ticket, I bought V-Air’s fancy fare, which includes 20kg of check in baggage, Fancy V seat (exit rows), one meal, priority boarding, and unlimited changes to date, but there was a 1200TWD change fee. The fare was $5790TWD ($190USD) including tax and fee. It was a more than reasonable flexible ticket, and I ended up having to change the date once.

As I said earlier, immigration and custom were fairly busy, as a number of LCC (Scoot to NRT & Jetstar to KIX) and charter flights depart at the early morning hours. Unfortunately only one duty free shop was opened, and Taoyuan airport needs to work with its vendors to have some food outlets and bookstores to open earlier. Due to the runway construction at Taoyuan, more flights are departing at the early hours, and they need to have some basic shops opening at 5am.

Busy morning at Taoyuan


Gate B2 was our gate this morning, and B-22608 had been sitting here since arriving from Chiang Mai the previous evening. A poor shot, but better than nothing!

[Carfield]

Priority boarding sign – it was 100% enforced.


Boarding began at 6:11am and priority boarding was enforced. I took the chance to take these few empty cabin pictures.







I counted at least six F/As working on this flight, which was very unusual for a LCC. They were all young and a bit on the skinny side. They were mostly friendly and were almost no different from your typical BR/CI/TN F/As, except that they wore t-shirts and khaki.

Another reminder about the baggage policy in V-Air: It is cheaper to pre-book baggage than paying it at the airport.


The A321 was kept in a very good condition, despite being used rather heavily. The seat pitch was actually very good, even in regular rows. Of course, there were a few rows to be avoided such as those non-reclining rows behind each section. They tended to be those pair seats.

All the seats have at least 32” of legroom. 194 All-Y-configuration is really not that terrible.
There were three types of seats with different seat covers: white ones – regular seats called Fit V; blue ones – Fast V seats (basically regular rows in zone 1), and pink ones – Fancy V seats.

Fit V



Fast V

[Carfield]

Fancy V




For future travelers who want Fancy V seats (seats with extra legroom), I checked out all three rows – Row 1, 11, and 25. Row 25 has no window, similar to most A321s exit row directly behind exit door 3R/L. I sat at 11F and faced the F/A jump seat – illustrated here:



Unfortunately the Taiwanese aviation regulations have still not caught up with the West, and mobile phones and tablets have to remain closed during takeoff and landing. I could not sneak out too many shots, without the F/A kindly “asking” me to turn off my phone.

Shot of the winglet


9V-JSU Jetstar’s A320 was getting ready to continue its flight from Singapore to Osaka Kansai, after a 60 minutes stop at Taipei.


Door was closed at 6:34am, after two elderly ladies showed up with their duty free bags. Without them, we could have even taken off a bit earlier. I had a long day ahead of me, so every second counts. We pushed back two minutes later and begin our taxi towards R/W5R. The safety demo was of course done manually, and it was interesting, as the girls attempted some funny move during the demo, including some dance move describing turbulence. Interestingly, everyone clapped after the demo was completed. Thankfully there wasn’t too much traffic, and we took off at 6:51am for our three hours and twenty-six minutes flight. We stayed at 34,000feet throughout the flight, and headed towards Makung, passing South China Sea, Lang Co Bay in Vietnam, Ubon Ratchathani, Buri Ram, Nakhon Ratchasima, and straight in approach to DMK’s R/W21R.

Seat belt sign was turned off at 6:56am, and the leading F/A took her opportunity to introduce her staffs, and they all did a cat walk style coming out from the curtain. It was borderline hilarious, but I guess V Air is going for the young and energetic brand. The F/As at least looked happy enough. Each F/A basically has a cute description attaching to their names and if you know mandarin, you will love it.

Reading literature in the pocket:
V Air menu, duty free shop, and inflight magazine




Extra briefing for the exit row passengers, and the English translation was beyond bad (they mostly likely used Google translate). I was about to take out my pen and started to edit it.

[Carfield]

The F/As had been taking hot meal orders prior to takeoff, but they basically went through the cabin first with pre-booked meals.

Here is the Vitamin menu!







I pre-ordered the pork chop rice combo with mixed fruit juice (mixed guava/mango), and V Bear Dorayaki (Japanese custard pie filled with chocolate cream). It was nothing out of the ordinary, and it was decent enough. Not many passengers ordered meals though.

[Carfield]

After the meal tray, a second F/A came through with beverage and snack sale. Then they did a promo for duty free sale before rolling out the cart, and each of the F/As came out from the curtain modeling various products, such as the V-Bear blanket, various cosmetic and handbag products. Around 9am TW local time, they made another P/A regarding food and beverage sales, and then at 9:25am, they made a final round collecting trash. But due to the early morning nature, most passengers were catching up with sleep.

One of the signatures of V-Air was that “V Bear” travels on every single flight, and the F/As placed them on the empty Fast V-seats today. They obviously encourage passengers taking photos with it and sharing them in social media.


In general, V Air is actually a nice LCC and the branding is attractive and cute. The buy on board menu was impressive and I like the ability to pre-book meals. The F/As in general were attentive and friendly. There were a few elderly that need assistance, and they did not hesitate to help. However a visit to the bathroom sorts of brings out my paranoia.

The bathroom was obviously a relic from its previous owner – TransAsia Airways with even the automatic/sensor faucet.


I was not surprised that there were no napkins in washing hands and you had to use the toilet papers. It is a LCC.


However, what is missing form this picture?


There is no soap/liquid soap to wash your hands with. Some of you might not care about it and I know many people don’t use liquid soap to wash their hands after using the facility. But for an American, this is really gross, and given how LCC F/As have to clear the airplane and other cleaning duties. How did they clean their hands? Did they have their own portable liquid soap or have hand sanitizer? Maybe it was because of the early morning hours, but I had originally planned to order a few more items prior to landing. But I decided against it and thankfully I carried some alcoholic wipes (thanks to my Dragon Air flights earlier in the week) in my laptop bag. I know I am a picky traveler, but maintaining a clean and hygienic environment should not be compromised. If they can afford spaces to load a stuffed V Bear and placed them on an empty row of seat, they could afford some liquid soap in the four bathrooms.

Descent soon began at 8:47am, Bangkok local time. Bangkok was an hour behind from Taipei. We landed on R/W21R at 9:17am. As the F/A in front of me was busy with making the after landing speech, I managed to sneak a few pictures. She actually gave the wrong time, as she was still in Taiwan local time, but I guess she could not understand both my attempts to correct her.




This early arrival was significant, as we managed to be the first flight to use the immigration facilities with little queue. Air Asia had two flights arriving ten minutes later. Unfortunately our baggage arrived later than those two Air Asia flights, which landed ten minutes after our flight. One of the staffs told me that V Air uses Thai Smile as their ground contractor, which was not as good as Air Asia. Despite parking at gate 22 (really close gate too) at 9:22am, the first bag did not show up till 9:46am.

Farewell shot of B-22608 at Gate 22


In conclusion, V Air was a fun LCC but unfortunately, my lack of confidence on its clean and hygiene standard will possibly stop me from booking a flight on them soon. Anyway, it is a fun flying experience and if you are flying V Air soon, remember to carry a bottle of hand sanitizer in your pocket, or avoid using the facilities, LOL!

The next installment will be the last one – I got to fly a number of interesting Thai airlines, and my experiences flying through these Thailand airports were definitely interesting, compared to my experiences with the Malaysian airports.


Carfield

[saobangpo]

v-bear

what a cute creature for a mascot

i am waiting for one of the lccs down under to feature a quokka

[SQueeze]

Another bizarre branding like peach and vanilla.
I wonder what V is for ...

I can see it's cute but when it comes to LCC, price is number 1, I won't pay extra for a dose of cuteness. Only Paying extra for seat or meal make sense. Will fly V only if it is cheapest and with good schedule. Cuteness is bonus.

Thanks for the TR Anyway. I read it with great interest and curiousity.

[SQ22]

V Air sounds like the type of airline that would tug at my heartstrings. Lol... I noticed a bloke taking a shot of one of the young pretty lasses at the front of the plane.

Then again, the fact that this aircraft is an ex-GE dose make me nervous.