Now that you can book a long haul flight with Scoot Airlines (especially from Australia to London!), are you wondering if it’s worth the money when booking your next Australia to Europe flight?
On our first overseas holiday since Covid, we found super cheap flights with Scoot Airlines from Gold Coast to Athens literally two weeks before departure at under $1000 return for everything (you have to pay for what you want on Scoot Airlines flights such as baggage, food etc). Seeing as we’ve travelled on so many different types of transport over the years, to us we didn’t think too much about what the journey would be like.
After jumping on countless Scoot Airlines flights on this trip, there were a few things that stood out to us, which we thought you should know about to prepare you before going on a long haul flight to Europe too.
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1. There’s no movies on the flight
After we booked our Europe cheap flights, we quickly realised there’s no entertainment on Scoot Airlines. We wondered whether it might be like some of the older planes that has a drop down screen placed throughout the plane that doesn’t give you an option about what you can watch. But no. There’s literally no entertainment at all.
What you’ll get is access to the flight path, shop duty free, make reservations, play games and see the inflight ScootHub. When I checked it out, I couldn’t order any food at the time as it wasn’t working.
While you can bring your phone or laptop to keep entertained, we just brought books with us. But you know what? We hardly read them, because phenergan is our savior when flying. Not heard of it? We will talk more about it below.
2. No water on the flight
FYI, we weren’t offered water at all on any of the cheap flights we took with Scoot airlines (unless it came with our meals). We always bring a 1 litre bottle of water each with us on all flights. When you get to the gate at most airports, there should be a drinking water tap so you can fill your water up to take on the flight.
3. Don’t pre-pay for Scoot Airlines food
We paid like $25 each I think for meals for each flight. We quickly realised after the first flight at what a waste of money it was and stopped accepting them by the last few flights. The food isn’t great at all, and you might want to consider spending your money buying a sandwich at the airport.
Something we did notice is the food comes out 1h30m after takeoff, regardless of what time it is. We had a connecting flight from Singapore which left at 2am and they still brought the food out at 3:30am. We asked them to bring it out later and they said they couldn’t guarantee it would still be warm but it was.
If you do order food, you’ll get a very small water, a couple of cookies and a dish which you’ll need to pre-order when booking your flights.
4. Bring a blanket or pre-order one for the flight
On the way to Athens from Gold Coast the flights were so so cold that we were all absolutely freezing on the flight. I was really jealous of a nearby passenger who had ordered a blanket. When I asked for one, they said I needed to pre-order it. One the flights on the way back home, they weren’t as cold so it might just be luck as to what you get.
5. Leg room isn’t as bad as you think
We were pleasantly surprised when we boarded our flights as they weren’t packed at all. This meant that we either had our own rows or a whole one for the two of us. There’s three or four seats per row so we felt quite lucky to get this.
The space between the seats isn’t too bad either, and Steve never felt squashed between his seat and the one in front. I think if our row was full, it would feel a bit squashed. Considering how cheap our flight was, it didn’t feel too bad at all.
6. It can get competitive on the flight
One thing I’ve not seen before until we got on one of the cheap flights is that people can be quite competitive in the sense of battling it out to get their own row. At one point before take off, someone put a scarf out on an empty row as a way to reserve it for themselves after take off.
While it was a bit competitive, everyone around us was really nice and we had fun strategising what seats we were all going for after take off. Please bear in mind that you can’t swap seats until after take off.
7. Not good with flying? Here’s our top tips!
So we have loads of How To Avoid Jet Lag Tips but we’ve also got a few tips that you really need to jump on board with before you get on any long haul flight.
As we mentioned above, buy 10mg Phenergan over the counter at your local pharmacy for your flight. We take one on the flight and sleep the whole way through (yes, easily 8 hours). Then when we land in Europe or back in Australia, we stay awake the whole day, then take another one at bed time. We sleep the whole way through and then we don’t get jet lag! Trust me, works every time!
The other tip is to bring two travel pillows with you. We blow up this travel pillow from Sea To Summit (click the link to buy before you fly so you’re not paying crazy prices at the airport for it) which is good to put between you and the seat arm bar if you’re lying down (we also take ours to the beach for sun bathing too).
We use also use this neck pillow as well for sleeping. Trust us, we’ve tried out so many and this one is the best. We also have it in the car for long journeys when one of us can go to sleep. See in our jet lag post below on the different ways to wear this new pillow.
I use this eye mask every single night which blocks out all light. Obviously bring ear plugs too. I also wear a hoodie as well and wear the hood up when flying.
And bingo, it won’t matter how much you’ve spent on the flight, you’ll sleep the whole way!
Read our full guide on how to avoid jet lag below!
Would we book Scoot Airlines again?
To be honest, it’s exciting to finally have a cheap long haul flight from Australia to Europe to consider now. We paid something like $750 for our flights from Gold Coast to Athens. All up with baggage on top, our return flights came to about $1000 each which is amazing really! I was worried our luggage would be over but they will add it up per group, so I’m always under and Steve is always over (I know!).
We’ve never flown anything but economy class (a blessing in disguise really) because to find cheap flights to Europe like this is a god send. When you put it into perspective, you can’t expect too much when flying so cheaply.
The staff and service is great and we’ve definitely dealt with rude staff on other airlines but Scoot is actually really good. If you can get your head around that it’s really just a day of flying from Australia to Europe then I would book with Scoot again because they really do offer the best prices when it comes to budget airlines.
Scoot Airlines will definitely be our go to airline when looking for flights to Europe, because why pay $3000 for a flight when we can get it for a third of the cost?
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