I first saw the Vietjet planes when I was landing into Ho Chih Minh City, on a Vietnam Airlines flight that had begun in Hanoi, gone to Vientiane (where I got onto the flight), and then going on to Phnom Penh before arriving in Ho Chih Minh City. It is clear that the two airlines have a bit of a rivalry. They fly to many of the same cities, but do so in a different way: Vietnam Airways with long routes that stop at multiple cities, Vietjet with point-to-point routes. Vietnam Airways provides food and beverages and a beautiful safety video, while Vietjet actively prevents its passengers from bringing in any sort of fluids to their planes because they want to sell their customers everything to make as much revenue as possible from each one, no matter how long the route is. Even on an aesthetic level, Vietnam Airlines has blue-colored planes while Vietjet’s planes are red.

It seems to go without saying that I preferred to fly Vietnam Airlines. And this in general was true, once I got on the airplane at least. If neither Vietjet nor Vietnam Airlines were perfectly on time, Vietnam Airlines was far more late, its complex routes leading to delays along every step of the way, making the flights increasingly late throughout the day based on their inability to have the fast turnarounds that they schedule in their flights, which is something that Vietjet is less vulnerable to with its point-to-point routes. I have to say that both airlines were roughly equal in the flying experience, minus the better video footage for Vietnam Airlines that showcased the personal and natural beauty of Vietnam and its people [1], but the difference was not a wide one.

It was thought-provoking for me to think of what it was that soured me on Vietjet. I did not mind the way that the airline tried to profit off of its customers when it came to selling snacks, even if I thought that $3 for cup of ramen noodles was more than a little steep, even if they were large cups with hot water in them, and the fancy kind of ramen noodles, relatively speaking, with vegetables to go with the noodles and large amounts of salt. I did not object to the seats being somewhat narrow, or the inability of the pilots and/or flight crew to properly put on the fasten seatbelt sign when the plane was flying through turbulence, as was the case, or even the somewhat defective lavatory doors that did not indicate particularly well whether the rooms were occupied or not.

No, what bothered me was when I approached the gate in Ho Chih Minh City and had someone inspect my bag to make sure I wasn’t bringing any water to the flight, inquiring about what sort of fluids I may have in my backpack to make sure that I didn’t bring anything that they wanted to sell me. I was about to go on a plane from Vietnam to Australia–a long way. If I had wanted to bring water, water I had purchased or obtained for myself, who were they to try to stop me from it? The matriarch of the Australian family in the row in front of me of Asian (probably Vietnamese) background commented that if they wanted to pay more money for their tickets, they would fly Quantas instead of Vietjet, but there are limits to what one should submit oneself to in the name of a cheap ticket. Even budget tourists have standards, you know.

[1] There appears to have been a deliberate effort on the part of Vietnam Airlines to have attractive women in the dramatic scenes involved in its safety and promotional videos, though the men involved in the videos appear to be far more ordinary looking. Perhaps this reflects a different standard for men than for women to be judged as attractive.