Any one any idea of an asian equivilent of Silverjet please

There isn't one.

Oasis Hong Kong is the closest, in that they do LGW-HKG a lot cheaper, both cattle and biz, than BA or Cathay.

Thanks, Oasis was the name I was looking for.

Jet does something similar (lounges, kerbside checkin and other Virgin-like funkery) on LHR-Bombay.

Oasis is a kind of Business Lite (big seats, but you have to pay extra for lounge access and amenity packs. Which is fine by me, since I've got a toothbrush anyway, and surely everyone's got access to some lounge?)

By an odd coicidence, I posted the above just as I was leaving home to get an Oasis flight to HK in business class.

I'm close to a fan. Of the three newish, low cost, intercontinental business class operators out of Britain (Jet to India, Oasis to HK, and flyglobespan to North America and South Africa), it strikes me as having the closest to right formula.

flyglobespan seems to get lousy reviews, showing that many people just won't put up with Ryanair discomfort and reliability risks on longhaul, and their "business" offer sems to have come down to a 352 pitch seat. Jet is just a professional, Indian, alternative to Air India: it competes on quality, but doesn't bring down the cost of J class travel.

Oasis is a lot better than its website implies. Snappy, dedicated checkin at an almost empty Gatwick. No fastrack through security, but even in South Terminal ten mins max from checkin through a 100% manned set of security scanners to the lounge (three mins away from the gate). The Servisair lounge is free in J, though the website implied different.

Biz seats are 60" pitch minimum, with about a third preposterously more spacious still. Mid-nineties (not flat) style, but still pretty comfy. Extremely helpful, if slightly chaotic, staff. OK food (roughly the standard BA used to do on 2-3 hour intra-European Biz flights), with a basic Western/Cantonese choice for supper and breakfast: decent, though eccentric, booze (French varietals, of which there aren't too many in the Wine Society catalogue, and rather obscure Ozzie and Argentinians). But at 35,000 ft who can taste properly anyway? About a dozen and a half films to choose from, none of which aprt from the Bruce LeesI'd ever heard of. No synopsis: just the assumption that it starred someone you occxasionally hear about is gossip columns was worth knowing.

No flowers in loo, amenity kit (free or for sale) or any of the fripperies. Hard to find out what system ut used for at-seat power (Empower, but the plane wasn't selling the kit and you couldn't find out beforehand, so the presentation didn't get written) But there were drinks and nibbles throughout the flight if you wanted them. Outward flight arrived early (good thing too, given the awfulness of HK immigration queues - far, far worse than I've ever experienced at much-criticised Heathrow).

Return flight much the same, marred by a 90 minute delay and chaotic handling of access to the plane. This mattered, because Biz included a number of slightly frail elderly people who'd deliberately chosen Oasis for its affordable comfort, but who were far too British and young to expect whelchairs. Getting to the plane was unnecessarily painful and difficult. Didn't help either that the CNAC lounge at HK turned all the power sockets off without warning, so people trying to recharge their phones or email home about the delay were cut off.

One other cavil: checkin closes 60 mins prior. And they say the checkin people just pack up and go home then: arrive 59 mins beforehand and they say you're snookered. Neither LGW South nor HK are busy enough when Oasis is taking off to justify this on security queue grounds, and it's the kind of deliberate irritation best left for Ryanair or BA to do.

Otherwise, an excellent experience, though it'll never compete with the companies targetted at the pamper-conscious.

At about 35% of the BA J fare, booked less than a week beforehand (and a lot of much better advance promotional fares on offer), perfect for people spending their own money on a long-haul personal trip, or small businesses wanting to go straight into a meeting on arrival, but watching the pennies.

NOT for corporate managers who want to squander their shareholders' money on overpriced ego massaging.

The people in cattle had no complaints about the experience, and were full of praise for the price.

The whole thing smacks of the early-days Virgin model: aggressive economy prices, underpinned by a decent, still cost-conscious, but quite large, Business class.

Oasis are planning to expand to the US West Coast and Germany. I wish someone would develop a similar alternative on other intercontinental routes out of the UK.