It can be considered as my first time taking the budget airline Vietjet and also my first time flying out of Changi Airport Terminal 4 since its inaugural opening last October. I had actually flown on a Vietjet craft on lease under Pakistan International Airlines last year, but that did not really quite count as a proper flight by Vietjet. Here I will review on the two flights VJ 814 from Singapore to Saigon and VJ 811 from Saigon to Singapore.

We arrived at the airport around 4.30pm for our 5.55pm flight, there were a few people in the queue. We got our boarding passes after 15 minutes and they tagged our handcarry bags with the Vietjet tags. A couple in front of us had exceeded the weight limit for handcarry and they were asked to pay extra for the checkin luggage.

Going through customs was a breeze with the automated clearance system. It is more responsive than the machines over at Terminals 1-3. There was also full-body scanning machines, but when it came to my turn, I was asked to go through the old metal detector which did not beep thankfully. I disagree with the news report that the whole terminal is fully automated from check-in to boarding because all these steps still involved many staff.

When we reached the flight gate, we found out that the plane had not arrived. The plane came in half an hour late and we only commenced boarding at 6.15pm. There was no announcement made about the late arrival of the aircraft so the people in the departure hall had to wait there. We walked around the terminal to explore the shops, which more or less sold the same stuff.

Boarding was done quickly, with the only new difference being the automated boarding gate which only works if the person had used the automated customs clearance previously. Anyway the queue for that was too long so we went to the manual counter and boarded the plane anyway.

The plane used was an old A320, with single row and 3-3 configuration. Surprisingly there was only one stewardess and 3 flight stewards, rare for the flight industry. The stewardess wore a polo tee and bermudas while the stewards wore pole tee and long pants.

The plane pushed off at 6.30pm and the flight time was 1h 50min. It was a short flight and by the time we landed in Ho Chi Minh city at 7.30pm, it was already dark. There was no aerobridge and we had to wait for the shuttle bus to send us to the arrivals terminal. After clearing immigration it was already 8pm and we went straight to our accommodation place.

Return flight : VJ 811 SGN – SIN

For the return flight, there was a long queue at the airport and it was quite disorderly. Vietjet did not have specific counters to process SGN-SIN flight, instead anyone with Vietjet flights could queue at any counter to check-in. Since we had only one hour to go, we asked the counter on the left to help us expedite the check-in process in case we missed the deadline. Then we had to rush to the security check area which was another long queue due to several flights departing in the morning slot. After going through that we cleared immigration and made it to our boarding gate just in time. VJ 811 boarding was on time and we were seated in the plane on the runway for about 20 minutes before we were clear to take off. The plane landed in Singapore at 12.07pm, seven minutes past the expected timing. Luckily, there was an aerobridge and after disembarking from the plane, we went straight to immigration and then to DFS to stock up on essential items.

That’s the end of the long weekend well-spent in Ho Chi Minh city. With a flight time of two hours, it makes a convenient weekend trip and the flight timing also suits us, except for the VJ 811 where departure is at 9am so we cannot do anything at all for that day except to make our way to the airport. I would avoid taking Vietjet in future because they have punctuality issues and the seats on the plane are not that comfortable compared to Scoot or Jetstar.