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Scoot Airlines Sucks

The Scoot Airlines experience is like 12 hours of people taking dumps right next to your head.

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RHODES, Greece- I am sitting aboard a Scoot Airlines flight from Singapore to Athens — a 12 hour direct haul. Although we arrived at the airport and checked in 12 hours early (Singapore Changi is the best airport in the world) my family has been separated. To my right, are my eight and two year old daughters, on the other side of the airplane is their mother. Separating me from my wife, positioned right where passengers would normally go, are toilets.

Within a meter and a half from my head a steady stream of passengers are pissing and shitting. I can hear it. I can smell it. When they walk by and crowd around the door they bump into me. I am kept awake by the sound of incessant flushing.

The toilet is hardly a meter from my sleeping 2-year-old’s head.

I’ve never seen a plane set up like this in 19 years of regular flying. I’ve probably rode on over a thousand airplanes and I’ve never seen toilets positioned directly next to passengers as if they were seats. This is disgusting.

I don’t mind low cost air carriers. In fact, even while their policies sometimes come off as obtuse and irritating, I ultimately love them. I have no problem with paying for what I use — just so I’m not being denied essentials for survival or being extorted.

AirAsia does a good job of finding the balance between being cheap and giving passengers what they want and need at fair prices.

Scoot Airlines, on the other hand, simply doesn’t get it.

I will put it this way:

Scoot Airlines charges passengers 3 Euro for a bottle of water. Water is an essential for life and the circulation systems in airplanes natural dehydrate people, so water on an aircraft should be free — like the toilets. You can go without eating on a flight, no problem, but not drinking is not an option.

What makes this situation even worse is that those 3 Euro bottles of water  are not even standard 330ml or 500ml bottles, but 200ml micro-bottles. Three Euro for 200ml of water on an airplane where there are no other options is extortion. The airline is leveraging their position of power to get more money out of passengers. This is disgusting.

Scoot Airlines sucks.

How to stay sane while flying budget airlines.

Filed under: Air Travel, Travel Diary

About the Author:

I am the founder and editor of Vagabond Journey. I’ve been traveling the world since 1999, through 91 countries. I am the author of the book, Ghost Cities of China and have written for The Guardian, Forbes, Bloomberg, The Diplomat, the South China Morning Post, and other publications. has written 3699 posts on Vagabond Journey. Contact the author.

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VBJ is currently in: New York City

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  • bernard August 25, 2018, 4:57 am

    Wouldn’t surprise me. It seems Scoot is going down the route of Tiger Air. They double charged me for the baggage on the outgoing leg and refused to let me use the allowance citing their terms and conditions that only allow of refund by voucher. I pressed for a refund in the original payment method and was refused because it was “not Scoot’s fault”. After countless phone calls and having phone calls drop out on me causing me to call back and repeat myself, they ceased to cooperate and even lied to me about sending out a voucher that I had apparently accepted.

    It wasn’t until I filed a chargeback with my credit card company that they finally refunded the double charge, but not without trying to put up a last minute fight.

    On the same leg, the baggage was damaged, but Scoot refused to accept any responsibility initially citing their terms and conditions, however, their terms and conditions do not and cannot override the Montreal Convention which dictates that they are responsible whilst in their custody. Even with quotes (which they refused to pay for) on what it would cost to fix the damage, Scoot will continually low ball you with a ridiculous amount.

    I hope that Scoot does not take the same budget/cheating approach to safety as it wouldn’t be a good look for Scoot, or their parent company Singapore Airlines if a plane crashes due to their corporate culture of short changing customers or not accepting any responsibility.

    After this incident, I personally will choose not to fly Scoot because they can tempt you with the cheap fare, but their lack of ethics and corporate responsibility is concerning.

    Long story short: Scoot sucks

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    • Wade Shepard August 28, 2018, 1:13 pm

      That’s absolutely horrible. Sorry that happened. It’s becoming in our best interest to start avoiding budget carriers like these altogether. Being cheap does not have to mean being bad. They seem to provide a low quality experience almost as part of their brand message: “You get what you pay for.”

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