AIRASIA has made flying more affordable and we pensioners are thankful that we can travel without breaking our budget. Hence, my husband, brother, sister-in-law and I were excited about our trip to Macau on June 30 as FIT ( free, independent travellers).

We enjoyed our trip but our return on July 3 was marred by a text message from AirAsia at 10.15am, informing us that Flight AK57 scheduled to depart at 13.35pm had been cancelled and that we had to take a later flight at 17.50pm.

By that time, we had already checked out of our rooms, and hence had to loiter around the airport for more than four hours. We had expected to have lunch on board, and having to instead eat at the airport stretched our budget.

Worse still, the flight crew were unaware that flight AK57 had been cancelled. As our pre-ordered food had run out, they had only Maggi mee to offer.

The most frustrating part was when I hit a wall in trying to claim compensation for the flight delay. I emailed AirAsia but there was no reply. I filled in the compensation form online, but when I tried to send it, a message appeared indicating an error. When I called their hotline, I got the usual “Please hold, all our agents are busy at the moment. You will be attended to shortly”.

After calling for the umpteenth time, I hung up. So who do I call now? Datuk Tony Fernandes? He who so proudly announced that AirAsia would compensate passengers for any delay longer than three hours. To me a delay is a delay, as the people affected have to incur extra cost, time and hassle.

I hope the PR people at AirAsia will keep to their promise of compensation and reply promptly to complaints, or all of Fernandes’ work in building AirAsia into a world class airline will come to nought.

Loh Siew Fun
Petaling Jaya

Source: The Sun – July 21, 2008