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NokScoot Inaugural Scheduled service/Singapore May 20, 2015

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  • NokScoot Inaugural Scheduled service/Singapore May 20, 2015

    NokScoot Inaugural Trip Report 2015


    Photo album link:
    http://s1213.photobucket.com/user/Ca...MKSIN05202015J

    May 20, 2015
    XW 202 DMK-SIN Lv0825 Arr1155 Boeing 777-200ER HS-XBC “Plai Fah”

    One of the few things that I want to do is to fly the first scheduled flight of a brand new airline, and NokScoot seems to arrive at the right moment especially I happen to have an extended stay in Asia. What is NokScoot? NokScoot is basically a joint venture between Nok Air of Thailand and Scoot of Singapore, which aims to take advantage of the huge demands of tourists to and from China, Japan and Korea. Scoot has a competitor at Singapore, which is Jetstar, but its long haul flights from Singapore to China and Japan had since been cancelled. However unlike Scoot in Singapore, NokScoot has a strong competitor in the long haul LCC sector, Thai Air Asia X, which runs a very good operation at DMK, and Air Asia is a strong brand that Thai people seem to believe in and like. Back to the show of this trip report, NokScoot has actually been running charter flights to and from Japan within the past few months, and NokScoot has finally received its scheduled airline authority in March, and announces short afterward about its original inaugural scheduled flight, which is Nanjing on May 5, followed by Seoul Incheon on May 10. Singapore Airlines has already transferred two of its older Boeing 777s to NokScoot, and Scoot has already transferred or will soon transfer its youngest 777 9V-OTF to NokScoot as HS-XBB. However the ICAO news soon broke out in late March and NokScoot’s plan was turned upside down. First the Seoul Incheon flight was immediately suspended, some charter flights to Japan were canceled, and its scheduled plan to Tokyo Narita was scraped. Then the Nanjing flight was postponed to June 2, and then as of now, the Nanjing flight will begin on June 11. Despite NokScoot claiming that it has passed the Chinese inspection a week ago, its authority has not been cleared. With two planes sitting at DMK and accumulating heavy loss, NokScoot suddenly announced that its first schedule flight would be to Singapore beginning on May 20. It even launched a $0 fare introduction. Honestly after reading so many reports on the Thai ICAO fiasco, Nanjing does not look like a possibility in short term, so I decide to just do the Singapore inaugural. Given all the enthusiasms on NokScoot’s social media team, I was hopeful that there would be some celebration. Of course the inaugural ended up being a normal affair, and was actually quite sad when a Boeing 777 with 400 seats had less than 50 passengers (not sure if all were paying too). After doing this so-called inaugural flight, I honestly am concerned about this airline’s future.

    NokScoot used the Aisle 7 at DMK and there was no proper sign – only temporary sign. Once again, there were many staffs at the counters but no one was assisting anyone. After running around the Nok Air check-in area, I found the NokScoot temporary check-in area among the Nok Air flights.



    At least there was a ScootBiz priority check-in line.



    The check-in agent was at least cordial and polite, and there was nothing special so far. There was no celebration and no mention of NokScoot’s supposedly big deal inaugural flight. Where is the Scootitude?

    International Flight Display Information System


    Immigration and customs were fairly busy at the early morning hours especially there were a number of early morning Air Asia flights. The revamp international area of Don Mueang airport is pretty nice compared to the domestic area. The air conditioning at least works fairly well and what is needed is the availability of some lounges for priority pass members.

    We got a pretty good gate, 22 today, which was next to the window. One thing that I really like about DMK was these big windows, which allow some plane-spotting and photography.

    HS-XBC “Plai Fah” was towing from the tarmac to the gate. It was interesting that NokScoot chose to use its latest addition, rather than its first plane on this inaugural flight.





    NokScoot’s HS-XBC at gate 22


  • #2
    HS-XBC was originally delivered to Singapore Airlines as 9V-SRH in May 2001.


    I love these nose shots – Nok means bird in Thai, so it is like flying bird – more interesting than Scoot’s plain attitude!








    Low load, as we could not even fill up this small gate area


    There was zero celebration and zero mentioning of today’s inaugural flight, unless they did it in Thai. There were a few NokScoot staffs around but no one was saying anything. Given how NokScoot launched its twitter handling on the same day, I expect some social media promotions. Thai people love selfies and they should have staffs going around with slogans and have people posting things on its Facebook/twitter/instragram page. The single female agent was soon joined by a large group of staffs.

    Boarding began at 8:02am and Scoot Biz passengers were invited to board first. There were three of us today in Scoot Biz cabin, and the section behind ScootBiz only had two or three passengers, who were mostly Nok Scoot uniformed staffs. There were two staffs with a clipboard running around during the short flight, but with this load, I was not sure what they could note. The F/As were somewhat friendly and polite. They were not overly enthusiastic but I could not say anything bad about them.

    I snapped a few pictures of the cabin prior to departure.



    Comment


    • #3


      Yes the cabin was identical to any Scoot 777s with the exact same seats in both ScootBiz and economy cabin. The seats are the same slim and uncomfortable seats that Scoot uses. Scoot Biz is also the same black leather seats and two passengers have to share one power outlet. However, NokScoot actually has a smaller ScootBiz cabin, which has one less row than Scoot. I will not be surprised that Scoot just transfers its seats from its former 777 aircraft to NokScoot 777.

      Pictures of the ScootBiz Cabin:












      Scoot silence zone

      Comment


      • #4




        Let check out its reading literature in the seat pockets:



        There is an inflight magazine.


        Menu – limited – I hope this is just temporary for this rush inaugural. If the Nanjing flight had started at May 5, this would really be a sad menu for a four and half hours flight. I don’t mind spending money on BOB food, but you had to give me something to buy. I just can’t believe there are no diet soda, no non-caffeinated soft drinks, and even some packaged snacks.





        I moved from 11K to 12K after the door was closed.
        I immediately noticed the IFE box under the seats, but there was no personal TV (not even dropdown TV) on this NokScoot plane.



        Boarding was quickly done, but door did not close till 8:23am. There seemed to be many F/As and staffs on board today and I guess everyone was learning on this flight. Then the Singaporean pilot went on the PA and welcomed everyone on board. Seriously he was the only one, who mentioned that this was the inaugural flight, and was genuinely excited about this flight. Using Scoot’s terminology, he is the only one with that Scootitude. He was really good in keeping us posted about the flights and without him, this flight was really be non-memorable.

        DMK was very busy this morning, and we did not take off from R/W21L until 8:53am after a number of planes took off and landed.

        Taxing to R/W21L

        Comment


        • #5
          After takeoff



          Flying time was an hour and fifty-eight minutes today with a cruising attitude of 41,000feet. We flew past Pattaya and Utapao/UTP, before entering the Gulf of Thailand. Then we headed towards Malaysia and passed cities of Kota Bharu, Kuanta, and Pekan, and then descending towards Singapore.

          Two F/As were in charge in ScootBiz today, and both of them were new to the job. For some reasons, my pre-ordered meals, Creamy Pasta, was not available, and the catering at DMK instead loaded a Chicken Teriyaki dish, which was not even listed anywhere in the menu. These two F/As tried to explain what went wrong, but their English verbal skills were just at that level to convey that message. I guess those dishes were for the charter flights and the caterer did not adjust the code for this new scheduled flight, and loaded the food designed for those charters to Tokyo. ScootBiz passengers also received a free bottle of water and a choice of two desserts – taro in coconut milk and pumpkin custard with their complimentary meals.

          Here is the meal:


          Overly sweet Chicken Teriyaki


          Industrial tasting Pumpkin Custard



          The F/A also asked if I wanted to purchase anything else, and there was a duty free service afterward.
          I purchased a NokScoot Blanket and baggage tag.


          The seats:
          Seat control panel – still at the same poor locations


          Scoot Biz seat in recline position




          Comment


          • #6


            For the rest of the flight, I decided to head to the economy cabin and checked out the seats. Here are a couple of pictures, and you can find more of them on my photo album link.










            Seat pitch on the regular blue seat:



            Seat pitch on the extra legroom seats:

            Comment


            • #7


              Descent soon began at 11:20am (Singapore is an hour ahead of Thailand), and we landed on R/W20R at 11:51am.



              We parked at gate F50 seven minutes later and both door 1 and 2 were used.



              Some staffs from SATS were handing out chocolates to arriving passengers, which sadly was the only reminder that it was an inaugural flight and was an important milestone for NokScoot.


              HS-XBC returning to Bangkok DMK later in the day – the load was even lower on this poorly advertised flight.



              In conclusion, this NokScoot flight was a major disappointment and actually displayed that it was not quite ready for a full operation. Thankfully the load was light, as I was truly not sure if the F/As were ready for a full load. Given they had already done some charter flights, I was surprised how the F/As were still unfamiliar with selling food and duty free items. I presume that there might be some free food included in the charter flights. The F/As were trying their best, but most of the times they were spent learning about all these machines and procedures. In some way, I think NokScoot should have started with the Singapore flights first and slowly moved towards long haul. In some ways, I felt that NokScoot knew that they were not ready, so they did not do anything about this inaugural and made a bad show in front of the press.

              Sadly, after this inaugural flight, most news about NokScoot continued to be bad, as it was obvious that these Singapore flights were not making money. Of course, NokScoot felt that it was a good idea to change the schedule again and they were going down to six weekly flights from June 1, and then to 4 weekly from July 1, and the schedule will end on August 16. There were many angry tweets and Facebook posts, as NokScoot was not doing a good job in informing passengers and offering alternatives to passengers on these canceled flights. For some reasons, the agents were pushing passengers to accept travel vouchers. Really, you want passengers to accept travel vouchers on an airline, which cannot receive authority to start long haul flights and has difficulty maintaining a reliable schedule on one single two hours flight to Singapore. Cash refunds should be offered immediately with no administrative fees. As a passenger holding a ticket to Nanjing, I shared that frustration, and had to call NokScoot to proactively ask about its schedule change on both changes – the change from May 5 to June 2, and from June 2 to June 11. In the end, I finally decided to cancel my Nanjing trip because it was obvious that they were not ready for the Nanjing flight, and the Singapore inaugural was such a poor experience that I did not want to waste any more money and time on an airline that shows little care. I could not believe that it took some angry tweets before getting cash refund on a flight that NokScoot could not operate, and I am seriously not sure when the Nanjing flight will occur. If the Chinese aviation authority has troubles granting you a license to fly to China, you really have to show a little bit of concerns. I sincerely hope Scoot, its mother company, is reading this trip report because NokScoot is not doing a favor for the Scoot brand. Will I recommend you to book NokScoot? The answer is a big fat NO because given the poor load on these Singapore flights, NokScoot might change its schedule again. For now, the only one task for NokScoot to be more proactive in notifying passengers about these canceled flights, proactively offering a full cash refund, offering some vouchers for future flights, and in the future, please take on a be more conservative approach with your scheduling. You need to focus on reliability and the continue postponement of your Nanjing flight looks really bad on paper now and I bet no one with the right mind is booking those flights. Without resolving this ICAO fiasco, please don’t even attempt any new launches. You have already generated a huge amount of bad wills from angry customers, and your airline is not even a month old. Nonetheless, this Singapore flight might be a blessing in disguise so your crews will be more trained to handle the future long haul flights, and expose some of the teething issues that NokScoot will hopefully avoid when it really launches it longer flight to Nanjing, Seoul and Tokyo Narita.

              I hope you somehow enjoy this trip report!

              Carfield

              A hint on my upcoming report:

              Comment


              • #8
                Thanks, Carfield. But the pics are not displaying.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by Carfield View Post
                  A hint on my upcoming report:
                  [URL=http://s1213.photobucket.com/user/Carfield76/media/Spring2015/NokScootInauguralXW202DMKSIN05202015J/IMG_9179_zpspnfzef3x.jpg.html]

                  Can i make special request A?

                  I'm flying this bird (or her sister) week after next - hurry up please

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Thanks for all your kind comments!

                    Sorry SQFlyergirl... you will fly Scoot's 787-9 before me.

                    I am doing Scoot's DMK-KIX and KIX-KHH inaugural in July 8-9!

                    Carfield

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Carfield View Post
                      Thanks for all your kind comments!

                      Sorry SQFlyergirl... you will fly Scoot's 787-9 before me.

                      I am doing Scoot's DMK-KIX and KIX-KHH inaugural in July 8-9!

                      Carfield
                      Oops - i thought you already flew it

                      Comment

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