the Scoot-Away

Not only is Sijia a close school friend, she’s also a neighbour; we both stay at Braddell View. At about 6.00pm, I met Sijia for an early dinner at one of the food hawkers in the stretch along Thomson Road; we ate ba chor mee. We had dinner until 6.45pm. During dinner, Sijia shared with me the gift she bought for our mutual friend Jiamin, whose birthday was coming. I asked her more about her purchasing process for gifts, to which she explained that it was nail stickers in different designs. She decided to buy it because it seemed like an upcoming trend to replace the traditional nail polish painting method which can get quite cumbersome during the painting process with risks of uneven coats and painting outside the nail and waiting for it to dry. The nail stickers seemed really easy to use and they looked good without spending too much on nail art for the same designs at a nail parlour and were priced affordably (80 cents per packet of 12). She also knows that her friend Jiamin likes to do her nails and likes elaborate designs and hence she bought them for her.

After dinner, we both did CNY shopping at Thomson Plaza. We bought quite a substantial amount of CNY goodies and snacks at NTUC Fairprice. One thing I realised about Sijia’s spending habits is that she really enjoys having good deals. For example, when buying drinks like NutriTea, she’d always check if there are discounts and promotions (two pack discounts); if there several brands of a particular sort of item, she’d optimise by calculating the per unit (e.g. per 100ml) cost, making sure everything is paid for at the best value (cheapest).

While we were shopping, Sijia asked whether I had made plans for my graduate trip yet. I took the opportunity to ask about her decision process, especially when it concerned choosing the airlines. She explained to me that she wants to go to somewhere she has never been and she wants to spend her entire 2.5 months before her job starts travelling. Her top choices for adventure are going on the trans-Siberian railway and exploring Russia, or going to the States to live with a friend. However, as she wants to travel with her close friends, the popular destinations are within Asia as it is more convenient and easier to plan for a holiday given everyone's different schedules. She already has plans to go to Korea and China with different groups of friends. They are waiting for promotions to be launched by the various budget or full-fledged airlines. As some of her friends are on very tight budgets, they plan to just book the cheapest flight to Korea and China, as long as the transit time is not longer than maybe 5 hours and is reasonable. As it is a trans-Asia flight, the comfort and service does not matter so much to her and her friends.

Hence, price will be the most important deciding factor for her, and will simply go with whichever airline has the best promotion, but hopefully take Scoot to Korea as it is a direct flight and she has had good experiences with Scoot prior to this. On the topic of Scoot, she says she’s been pleasantly surprised by how the experience of flying with them exceeded her expectations. She says she's not very aware of their advertising efforts, she just knows that they have been rolling out quite a number of new destinations from Singapore since the start and is excited to see Singapore more connected with a new budget flight. She’s also more inclined to choose Scoot over another budget airline if there is a minimal price difference because of her positive experiences prior to this and the new fleet, which make the journey comfortable. There is also some pride involved in flying on a local carrier, and the familiarity of the local accent and mannerisms of the service staff. Because Scoot has the backing of SIA, Sijia feels safe and assured when she chooses to fly with them.

At about 9.30pm, we ended the night by walking home.