Firefly the Airline

Before booking this flight I had never heard of Firefly. They’re a small regional Malaysian airline owned by the Malaysia Aviation Group, a state owned company which also owns Malaysia Airlines, MASwings, MASkargo and a few engineering companies.

Firefly’s fleet consists of 9 ATR 75-500 (aircraft being reviewed) as well as 5 Boeing 737-800s. So they’re definitely a smaller airline. And you can see from their route network below, besides Singapore, Phuket and 2 cities in Indonesia they only fly within Malaysia. Their main hubs are Subang Airport in Kuala Lumpur and Penang. Though Subang is too small to accomodate 737-800s so these are mostly from Penang.

Subang Airport

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia has two airports. First the massive Kuala Lumpur International Airport is located 28 miles / 45km from the city itself and served a peak of 60 million passengers in 2018. Today though I’m flying from the much smaller Subang (Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah) Airport located just under 10 miles (16km) from the city centre. Both Airport are easily accessible by rail or car, though Subang is a bit quicker to get to. It’s also much smaller, only serving around 2 million passengers a year. That’s mostly because only small turboprop or private aircraft are allowed to operate out of this airport.

Inside the airport there’s a small bag drop area which had no queue when we arrived. I doubt there’s ever much of a queue as they only operate a handful of flights an hour at this airport. There’s also a few cafes and convenience store pre-security, so if you want to buy anything do it here. You won’t find much after security apart from a 7-Eleven and small cafe.

Once through security (which also had no wait), we entered the departure zone. That might be a bit of a grandiose name for it though. It’s basically just one large waiting room, with a toilet. All of the chairs did have power sockets though, so that’s good. As soon as your flight is ready you’ll just walk straight onto the tarmac to your plane.

The Plane & Seat

Then moving on to the plane itself, a 72 seat, 14.8 year old ATR 72-500 turboprop registered 9M-FYC. If you’ve ever flown on one of these aircraft, or the similar Dash 8, then you’ll know it’s loud. Extremely loud, so much so that when walking to the aircraft and during takeoff my ears actually hurt. That’s not something that happens on larger jet aircraft. Also at times the vibration from the engines (again at takeoff) really makes it feel like the whole aircraft is humming. That combined with the smaller size of the aircraft (which makes turbulence more noticeable) means I wouldn’t really recommend flying on one if these if you’re a nervous flyer.

I recently flew on a similar Dash 8 to Luxembourg for business and a co worker swore it was the worst flight of their life and will only fly jets in the future. Though personally I quite like flying on turboprops. Something about the propellers and smaller size just seems more exciting to me. But in terms of a comfortable flying experience, it probably scores a 3/10.

Service

Lastly, there’s not much to say about service. The cabin crew seemed friendly enough but my only interaction with them was saying hello when we boarded and when they handed out snacks.

Speaking of snacks though, it’s pretty generous for a budget airline like this. We were all given a small bag of cookies AND some peanuts plus a bottle of water. Even Malaysia Airlines only give you a small bag of peanuts on flights of this length. So basically Firefly, the budget subsidiary of Malaysia Airlines, are outperforming the premium Malaysia Airlines. Of course, it’s just a small thing but is nice nonetheless.

Final Thoughts

Overall I was very impressed by the efficiency of Firefly today. Whilst the plane is a bit shoddy and the seat leaves a lot to be desired there were no delays and we arrived ahead of schedule. The in flight service of 2 snacks and some water was also a nice bonus for a budget airline. Air Asia for example don’t give you anything on this route. As long as you can put up with the very noisy environment for 1 hour then it’s a good option.

However, Firefly make the claim of being a low cost airline. But on this route from Kuala Lumpur to Penang at least they were pretty much the most expensive option. Both Air Asia and Malaysia Airlines were cheaper by quite a margin. We paid £41 each for the one way flight including seat selection. Meanwhile, Air Asia would have cost about half that and Malaysia Airlines about 75% of that. However, Firefly does provide free checked baggage and the convenience of Subang, which is close to the city centre than KLIA.

Oh, and don’t forget to double check you’ve entered your name exactly as it appears on your passport before flying. I left out my middle name from the ticket and they charged me MYR 150 (£25) to change it. I’ve flown 100+ flights in my life, mostly omitting the middle name and never had a problem. So try not to make my mistake if you’re flying Firefly.

More from me…

Please feel free to check out other related posts I’ve written:

• Malaysia Airlines Economy A350-900 – Great food on a 13 hour flight
• Singapore Airlines Fantastic Regional Business – Saigon to Singapore on a 787-10
• Singapore Airlines Economy from London to Singapore – As Good as People Say?

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