Flight Review – Scoot TR427: Penang to Singapore by Airbus A320-200

With an airfare cheaper than the train ticket and a travel time which gets me back to Singapore in one-tenth the time needed by train, I opted for the logical choice. Scoot TR427 is a scheduled daily morning flight from Penang to Singapore departing at 10.05am, getting into Singapore at 11.35am. However, due to the closure of a part of Singapore’s airspace during the Combined Rehearsal for the Singapore Airshow 2018, my flight was rescheduled to depart almost 2 hours later instead.

The email from Scoot regarding my rescheduled flight.

The new one-off re-timed flight of TR427 departing Penang at 12.00pm, which was even better for me since I can have a proper breakfast in Penang before heading off to the airport by the rapidPenang bus. And with other airlines selling tickets at this timing for about 5 times the price I paid for Scoot, this turned out to be one of the best deals ever.

I made it to the check-in desk at Penang International Airport just in time – about 10 minutes before they close. Check-in for Scoot flights close 60 minutes before departure.

3 counters were opened for Scoot. Since I had no bags and was one of the last passengers to check-in, the process was pretty quick, and I was done in less than a minute.

My boarding pass for TR427 back to Singapore.

Heading for immigration. To my surprise, the queues for immigration were quite long. Didn’t know Penang had this many international flights departing at the same time. The queue for immigration took about half an hour.

The moment I cleared security screening, boarding calls for TR427 were made. So it’s a brisk walk to Gate A5 for me.

In case you’re not tired of cafe-hopping in Penang yet, here’s a last one for you within the transit area of Penang International Airport.

9V-TRD “Felix”, ready for passengers back to Singapore. It’s strange how when Scoot usually gives punny names to their planes such as Inspiring Spirit, Flying Banana and for the latest Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, Getting Lei’d (for 9V-OFK‘s long-haul flight to Honolulu), they somehow gave a regular name to this adopted #A320bae.

Boarding my flight at Gate A5. Since I only had a rather flat bag to store in the overhead compartment, I didn’t bother rushing to board the plane when they first called for my row despite me sitting at the second-last row of the plane.

Boarding the very full flight back to Singapore.

The view from my seat.

At 12.00pm, the pilot announced that the Singapore airspace was still closed and we can’t fly back to Singapore yet because Singapore hasn’t given the okay. The plane waited for about 15 minutes just sitting at the gate (with the aerobridge detached) before finally taking off.

.

.

.

And because I got an aisle seat, no window views are available for this blog post.

Despite departing Penang 15 minutes behind the rescheduled time, the flight still arrived on-time just before 1.30pm. Guess Scoot was smart to factor in additional flying time in the itinerary in order to get you an “on-time arrival”. Since I had no bags to pick-up, it was a quick process from getting off the plane to clearing immigration and customs and finally getting on the MRT back home – all in the span of 10 minutes.