It's Okay, But Not Great - Song Airlines Gets you from A to B
Written: Sep 03 '04
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Clean, well maintained newer planes, in-flight video & TV, pleasant crew
Cons: Some annoying aspects, any food costs extra, tight seating
The Bottom Line: I probably won’t book a flight, but if it gets into my Delta itinerary, I’d probably take the flight - It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t great either
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| jps246's Full Review: Song Airlines |
I was an inadvertent patron of Song Airlines but when it first happened, I didn’t give it a second thought.
I was in the process of booking a flight to Las Vegas from Boston and was using Delta Airlines, which is the airline that I try to do all of my flying on. The only way I could work out a round-trip flight was to fly back from Vegas on Song Airlines (when you are booking with Delta, they automatically include Song flights in their itineraries).
It was a direct flight and it was at the time that I was interested in – plus I was curious to see how well Song compared to other discount airlines I’ve used like Southwest.
Check-In
Song Check-In is like check-in for any airline. At the Las Vegas airport they share their counter space with Delta Airlines – Song customers can check in at any Delta counter.
With the typical requirements of showing your ID, checking your bags and getting your boarding passes, the routine for Song Airlines was no different than any other airline.
Boarding
Here’s where it starts to get interesting. Your boarding pass has a “zone” marked on it, much like regular Delta boarding passes, but these zones refer to the seating patterns on the plane and unlike Southwest Airlines, you are assigned a seat on your boarding pass. Because there is no first class or business class on the planes, passengers are seated from the windows seats on out to the aisles. So everyone with window seats would be in zone A, while everyone on the aisle would probably be Zone D and so on.
The process was fairly well managed and the plane we were flying was practically full. They began boarding anyone with children and anyone with a disability/handicap first. Then they went zone by zone, boarding passengers in groups of what seemed like 30 or 40 people in each zone.
Getting on the plane
Song’s planes are newer than the average plane, I noticed that as soon as I got onto the plane. It also had a layout that I had never seen on a plane before – two rows of 3 seats on either side of the main aisle.
Our plane was just about full and we were in the last zone to be called. As you’d expect, plenty of people were in the aisle blocking the way as they tried to get their carry-on stowed away. When we finally did get to our seats, the first thing I noticed when I sat down was that they were no different than the seats on most other airlines, if anything, the seats actually seemed tighter than others I had been in.
Now I don’t consider myself a really big guy at about six foot, two inches and 210 pounds, but I found that the seats were tight and I think that for anyone larger than me, it would have been a really tight fit.
All seats on the plane feature a tv/video display on the back of the seat in front of you. You can access various channels of DirectTV, see information about the plane (altitude, speed, location, etc), you can listen to various music channels and you can take part in a plane-wide trivia game, playing against other passengers.
My partner and I lucked out – out of the entire plane, we had the only empty seat in our row, so instead of being squeezed in with another person, we had three seats for the two of us. If there had been a third person, and especially if that person was semi-large, it would have been a miserable seating arrangement.
The Crew
The atmosphere on Song is distinctly more relaxed than say on Delta airlines. Beyond the Flight Crew up in the cockpit, the crew seems to be able to wear any sort of uniform that they want. I don’t believe any two of the stewards and stewardesses where wearing the same uniform. Some had more formal ones, while others were more relaxed and casual.
The crew was in general quite pleasant and seemed to be happy. They handled the typical requests quickly and nicely and even seemed very willing to accommodate as many requests as possible (for example they didn’t make a passenger with a huge carry-on check it, they stowed it away behind a row of seats for him).
Taking off…
Like on all flights, you’re treated to the emergency information as you are preparing for take-off. On Song flights this is put to Irish music and at least on our flights, some of the crew were doing versions of Irish dances as they were showing how to put on an oxygen mask.
Call me crazy, but at 10pm as we are about to embark on a red-eye flight from Las Vegas to Boston, I’m not really in the mood to listen to this and clap along. It was cute in a kitschy way and I found it to be annoying.
In Flight Services
What do you get with your ticket while your flying? There’s complimentary beverage service (soda, coffee, tea and water) and you can watch DirectTV, play an online trivia game, listen to music or check out the statistics on the airplane and the flight. For an extra few dollars you can catch a pay-per-view movie and if you want any food or snacks, you are going to be paying extra for those too.
The inclusion of DirectTV was cool – I could watch the weather channel, the discovery channel and several other stations – in all, I think there were about 15 different channels to choose from. The trivia game was addicting – ours was music trivia and when I was playing, there were about 50 people on the plane playing. It’s fun to try to beat others and the game keeps track of the high scorers and their seats – so I guess if you wanted to congratulate the winner – or know who the real music nerds are, you could find them.
I didn’t bother paying extra for any of the snacks or food and neither did my boyfriend – but the basics were available, candy bars and for bigger meals, sandwiches were also available. The prices weren’t outlandish, but considering I really just wanted to sleep more than anything else, I wasn’t going to bother paying for the food.
Mileage
I’m a Sky Miles member with Delta Airlines and any miles earned on Song are transferable to your Sky Miles account. My account number was included on the boarding passes and flight information and the miles for my flight were processed quickly and placed into my account.
Final Thoughts
It’s not that I hated Song, I really didn’t, but it wasn’t what I had thought it would be. From the annoying music during the pre-flight briefing to the fact that the seats seemed overly tight – I just wasn’t impressed all that much.
Yeah, the in-flight video and TV was really cool (and something I wish all airlines did), but that didn’t make up for the fact that I couldn’t even get pretzels without paying, or that if we had been sitting next to someone else, I doubt I would have been comfortable at all.
I will give them the fact that the planes are clean, new and well maintained and that the crew is generally very accommodating and pleasant (which sometimes isn’t the case on some airlines).
In the end I probably won’t ever purposely book a flight on Song, but if it gets thrown into my Delta itinerary again, I’d probably suck it up and take the flight. It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t great either.
Recommended:
Yes
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