Lydia and I had to go down to Kuala Lumpur (KL) for the weekend to get our passports back from the Kazakhstan embassy and to attend a friend's wedding. We decided on flying down instead of driving or taking the bus. Instead of flying the AirAsia, we decided to use Firefly Airlines. Firefly is a Malaysia Airlines subsidiary that serves a couple of regional routes like Singapore, Koh Samui, Phuket, etc. Even though Firefly were slightly more expensive if compared to AirAsia when we bought the tickets, it was worth it for a couple of reasons.
The main reason is that Firefly flies into Subang Airport (SZB) instead of the KLIA Low Cost Terminal (LCCT). Subang used to be the main international airport but now only serves turbo-prop airlines like Firefly. It's much closer to the city than the LCCT. The cab ride takes half the time (on a good traffic day - it took me almost 2 hours to get to the Novotel due to horrible traffic thanks to the heavy rain) and half the cost (rm40/~$13USD). Getting in and out of Subang airport is really fast and convenient with very little crowds. It also took only 10 minutes to retrieve our check-in luggage.
On arrival at Subang Airport:
You get 20 kg free check-in luggage versus having to pay for it on the low-cost option airlines. You also get a light snack of peanuts or pastries and a cup of juice.
30 minutes check-in cut-off time which saves the time of not having to arrive at the airport super early. We however did not make use of this and actually got to the airport even before the earlier scheduled flight had departed. We tried to get on the earlier flight but you had to pay a penalty which we obviously didn't do.
The flight is operated with a ATR72 aircraft that comes with a 2-2 seating. The space was kind of tight but was bearable for a 45 minute quick flight. It did get quite unusually bumpy during the take-off and landing. Service was pretty standard and nothing stood out which was expected on a short hop.
Caught some nice views of Penang on the way to KL:
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