HK Express review by Cheng Shi

All budget airlines understandably have their ways to cut costs, but this one has gone beyond all human necessity, let alone human decency, and ventured into the acts of fleecing passengers of as much extra money as possible with hidden rules and charging extra for services that are supposed to be bare basics for a flight, such as having a seat in the plane or a cup of water for a four-hour flight. You would start noticing the unusual practice of demanding additional payment for normal online check-in - extra money if you would like to check in even for a standard seat - so really, their air ticket price, which you have paid in full, does not include a seat. So you are supposed to be standing in the plane if you don't pay extra? Or has the airline been requesting duplicate payments from passengers for the same seats they have already paid for? Then you find out that they have shrunk the hand luggage to a pitiful 40*25*20 - but even if you comply with this requirement, at the airport they will suddenly bring out a tiny metal scale (which appears much smaller than the already pitiful measurement), and insist that your hand luggage will only be allowed if you can fit it in that tiny scale. If you ask them for a ruler to prove the scale is correct, they will definitely refuse, as they did to me repeatedly. You will then have to pay an astronomical amount of additional money to be allowed to take your pitiful and already compliant tiny luggage. And they still haven't explained to me why they refused to bring out a ruler to check their scale or my luggage. Then they tell you that not only do they not provide food during the four-hour flight (through lunchtime), they do not provide water either. And they actively stop you from bringing your own water onboard. Why? You guessed right - they want to sell you water onboard at an obscene premium. So for a four-hour flight going through lunchtime where the passengers are inevitably confined within their cabin and there is no way to get out, no food even for those with low blood-sugar and no water for those feeling ill? That is a serious breach of basic health and safety rules and standards. That's also a breach of basic duty of care, like selling you a knife without a handle and a car without brakes (it's a product technically, but you can't use it without seriously injuring yourself so it's not a proper product meeting basic requirements and is a breach of the law). In conclusion, you will inevitably pay more, or much more, than shown in the air ticket if you fly with this airline, but still get treated like an idiot. You will find that the price you end up paying could probably get you a business class ticket with a decent airline anyway