Travelling on a budget airline

I haven't been posting as we've been away the last 3 weeks. Seems like a long time to go on a holiday, but when you have young children, time just passes by.

We were excited to fly again, confident that we have everything we needed for the trip.

We packed very little clothing as we were flying to visit family and there will be clothes there that we can wear. The did however, have a luggage of entertainment and food for the children for the plane rides and car trips while overseas.

This trip we flew with Scoot. They're a budget airline. The fares were cheaper than the usual ones that we used to fly with. For the 4 of us, we could save between $900-$2000.

It was interesting to note that children were not given any discount for the return flight, so we did one way tickets for all of us to our destination and the return home. There was a selection of meals to choose from that was part of the fare. We picked one from the menu for the children and for both of us adults, we paid for the premium meal. Unfortunately, there was no choice of food and we didn't really know what we would be served.

And thus the adventure began.

The trip to our destination was a day flight, so I had lots of entertainment (we didn't purchase the in-flight entertainment package) packed for the children and food to snack on. Everything went well. The children were woken up at 5am to get to our airport. We had some breakfast before boarding and they were excited. I have calculated my time perfectly that the little one will be tired about an hour or two after we were in air and should sleep.

Checking in through customs was a breeze, though having to unload mobile phones, keys and other metallic stuff from our backpacks were a hassle. Why would one have their keys handy when going overseas?!

Anyway, we boarded and the plane started its journey. At this moment, the little one decided that she should sit with mummy instead of the older one. And so a tantrum ensued. It was pacified with stickers and 'Oh look! Outside!" and a vitamin pill as a last resort. We didn't have any trouble with air pressure, thank God, and the rest of the flight went rather well. The girls played play dough, read books, snacked, and actually had a nap. We arrived at our destination feeling encouraged that it went smoothly.

The return flight, however, was not quite as expected! First, it was a late night flight. Children were tired, cranky and upset that they're leaving all the fun behind. The older one wanted to sit with me, and so did the younger one! My husband literally held the younger one down in her seat till the seatbelt sign went off. Stickers didn't work, vitamin pills didn't work, crackers and drinks didn't work either. It was mummy or shrieking.

My husband and I looked at each other and had the look that said, "Can we make it through the night?"

As soon as the seatbelt sign was off, both children were on me. I truly felt like an old gum tree with two koalas. Except that these two wriggle and fight.

We were served our meal pretty much within 45mins into the air. We all ate some. I prayed for a good night's sleep for the children and us after the meal.

Took our children almost another hour after the meal to finally fall asleep. Both of them wanted to sleep on my lap. I can't remember what happened, how it happened, but the older one eventually went to daddy and slept on his lap. The younger one, however, needs to lie flat to be able to sleep. And guess what, we only had 4 seats. One for each of us. I was relegated to the floor at one stage, because the younger one took 2 seats all to herself in dreamland.

It was a good flight as soon as the children fell asleep. We were both tired too and took the opportunity to catch some rest.

We were glad to be home in our beds once again after the long flight back.

The husband and I talked about travelling again in the future and we both decided that for our own sanity, we will pick the mainstream airlines. At least we wouldn't need to bring that many snacks onto the plane and have a good selection of meals and snacks provided.

Scoot only provided us with one meal and for all other foodstuff and drinks, we'd have to pay for it. The range was not good enough to accommodate allergies.

When it comes to flying, the hours were not ideal for young children. We are thankful that our children coped quite well with the awkward hours.

All I can say is, be prepared when travelling on a budget airline with young children. Know your children, know what to expect and think ahead. Sphere: Related Content