Ordinary Gweilo

It seems that Hong Kong is soon to have a new budget airline, called Oasis [via salty water].  I am not sure that "budget airline" actually means anything very much in Asia, because each company seems to have its own business model, none of which are quite the same as the well-established US and UK companies.  Oasis say will they will offer non-stop flights for the price of flights with an inconvenient stopover, which means a modest discount to what you would currently pay with Cathay/BA/Virgin – better than nothing, but hardly earth-shattering. 

What is interesting about Oasis is that they plan to fly to Europe and the States rather than within Asia.  Destinations include Gatwick and Cologne/Bonn (which they helpfully point out is in Germany, for anyone planning to fly there maybe thinking that it was in Canada).

Having used both of those airports, I can confidently say that they are a hundred times better than Heathrow and most of the other large airports in Europe.  Gatwick is next to the mainline London-Brighton railway, and these days Easyjet fly to many European destinations from there.  Now, obviously it’s not as much of a "hub" as Heathrow, so if you want bigger crowds and a wider choice of more expensive flights then it may not be what you’re looking for, but it would suit me just fine.

The airline claim that the seat pitch will be "generous", but they haven’t explained what that means.  If it’s better than cattle class in BA/Virgin/Cathay then I forsee a price war, which has got to be good news.