Why I won't be flying budget airlines

The recent crash of Indonesia's budget airline Adam Air has reiterate my stance that budget airlines especially here in Asia are unsafe. From Reuters:

Elsewhere in the region, Malaysia's AirAsia, the region's largest budget carrier with a fleet of 50 planes, and Seoul's Hansung Airlines have had burst tyres and bad landings. No one was injured in any of these incidents.

Still, these instances, along with cases of misleading advertising and poor customer service, have generally given rise to the perception that discount carriers are less safe.

"There's definitely a psychological factor that goes against low-cost carriers," said an analyst who declined to be named...

Still, there are concerns about the sharp contrast in the fatal crash rates between large, first-world airlines and small ones in developing countries.

In Africa and the Middle East, the rate of fatal accidents -- which is falling globally -- was higher in 2000-2004 than 1995-1999.

I'm not a big fan of budget airlines. In fact I believe most of these startups will not last anyway. And speaking of Adam Air, why on earth would they take so long to search for the missing airliner? The plane went missing on Monday and it's going to be Friday already.

I have no confidence in any of the Indonesia government agencies especially after their slow response during the tsunami and I guess it's not a surprise that they take so long in this situation too.