After flying Scoot Biz (well tried to) on a KUL-SIN-BKK this past Friday, I have to warn all of you regarding the possibility of "downgrades" as Scoot really has no spare 787s these days. My flight TR 453 from KUL to SIN on 9/15 was downgraded to an A320 with zero notification through emails or phones. The worse is that the agents in KUL did not notify me of any delays till I looked at my boarding pass showing a 26A in economy, instead of 2K in ScootBiz. Flightradar24 and flighty did not help because they don't have access to Scoot ops. The KUL agents were honestly overwhelmed but tried to be deceptive. Then the agent dared to tell me that I should be grateful that I have a seat because they have to bump at last 50 passengers, as it was the F1 weekend in Singapore, as well as Malaysian National Day weekend too. When I inquired about downgrade compensation, they just said that they did not work for Scoot. I had to contact them. I still haven't heard from them as of this point. I can't even get an "apology" from their Twitter team. But they at least loaded the turkey and egg wrap I pre-ordered for the short flight.

So my warning is that don't fly ScootBiz on these short haul flights because downgrades are frequent. Scoot will try their best in not telling you anything and you may not get any compensation. At out stations, their agents are all poorly trained contractors. It is clear that Scoot uses the cheapest and the most incompetent agents. They are dishonest and just did not take responsibility for anything. Also given how Singaporean government is protective of their National Airline, I do not expect any passenger bill of rights to be set up. Definitely do online check in though but wait till 12 hours prior to departure. So you can find out last minute plane swap, but I heard stories that they swap planes two hours prior to departure. I have a feeling my flight TR 453 was that case.

On time reliability is also quite poor with Scoot since they don't really have spare airplanes especially on these 787 flights, so I will not travel on a same day connection involve Scoot. TPE-NRT on Scoot connect to NRT-LAX on SQ on two separate tickets is just a bad idea.

For those short hops BKK/HKT-SIN and KUL-SIN 787 flights, you can buy ScootBiz and their service is okay. They are LCCs so their service reflect that. Their crews are robotic but at least will sell you food and provide some service. However downgrades are possible especially if one of their 787s are stuck somewhere. If you are downgraded, do not expect anything because Scoot may or may not response to your emails. Their twitter teams don't respond to bad news. Maybe there are just too many of them.

I learned my lesson hard this past weekend. I will not even bother with ScootBiz on these short SIN-BKK/KUL flights because you don't know when the downgrades happen. I will possibly fly Scoot again because I want to fly its Pokemon flight. Their HKG-SIN ScootBiz fares are quite good and seems to have less chances on last minute aircraft sub. But I will be very careful on which routes I pick. With the new longer range A321NEO being delivered now, I will become more weary about last minute downgrade on certain medium-hual 787 flights too, like SIN-HKG/TPE/ICN/PER and TPE-ICN/NRT too.

Honestly their onboard experience is okay as you tell you that they are LCCs. The 787s are a bit worn out but not surprising given on how Scoot uses these planes. I definitely don't recommend flying on two separate tickets involving Scoot. Just expect the worst and you will be fine! Just remember that there is no customer service since SQ is not that great to begin with, and Scoot has to be one step lower. I feel that Singapore Airlines makes it clear that Scoot is not Singapore Airlines and makes sure that their ground and inflight experiences to be at least two grades below. It is a good "C/D" airline, but will never be an A/B airline so Scoot will not cannibalize SQ's passengers, since they operate plenty of identical routes. That mentality reflects on how Scoot operates.

Carfield