Hello 2009!
I remember it was quite a few years back that i first took Air Asia... I remember my first trip on it was actually a KL to Kuala Terengganu return. If I am not wrong, this should be dated sometime between 2000 and 2002... pardon my memory lapse to pin point the exact date... but date is not important in this story... what happened was in the return trip, me and my family had to wait at the KT airport for a good 4 to 5 hours due to delay. At that time, I remember hearing that Air Asia often have delays due to the fact that the airline company is growing pretty rapidly and the mere volume caused the planes to run a schedule whereby being on-time was hard to come by... so being on-time was a problem back then.
However, since 2004 to probably a good portion of 2008, I remember this problem was nearly non-existent. Somehow, all the flights that i took on Air Asia had no problems in meeting its departure time. Sometime in late 2008 was when they rolled out this on-time guarantee promotion. I still remember when I first saw the ad, my first impressions were... heck, AirAsia is really smart in rolling this out now, as 1) they can promote that AirAsia is committed to being on-time (in addition to its cheap fares) and 2) it wont cost them much as at that time, being on-time was a regular occurence for them. Kudos to that!
I am not sure why but things started to go downhill a few months after this programme rolled out as I start to see more delays in my monthly travel between KL and Penang. It could be likely that AirAsia is reaching its saturation point again; capacity of 58 spanking new AirbusA320 delivered to date is no longer providing enough schedule buffer to avoid running a tight departure and arrival schedule.
Summary of my travel experience with Air Asia
- 12/05/08 9pm departure - on time
- 12/08/08 4.20pm departure - delayed to 8pm
- 12/31/08 9pm - on time
- 01/04/09 4.20pm - delayed to 5.15pm
- 01/23/09 9pm - delayed to 11.15pm
- 01/31/09 7.15am - on time
- 02/06/09 9pm - delayed to 10.35pm
- 02/09/09 4pm - TBD
As you can see, in the past 4 return trips that i travelled, AirAsia ruined the itinerary on ALL FOUR OCCASIONS! I mean, talk about a streak here...
I mean nothing to be upset about. I actually manage to get to RM200 voucher for my 12/08/08 flight delay as it was more than 2 hours. About my 01/23/09 however, I conciously chose to make myself ineligible for the voucher as it was already late and all i wanted is to arrive as early as possible. So what I did was I changed my flight to the 11.15pm departure instead of God knows when the 9pm will departure. You need to be onboard of your original flight that was delayed to be eligible for this RM200 voucher.
To think about it, it really is not that great of a voucher because of 2 reasons. 1) next itinerary purchase must be made in 3 months (fine for me but for people that dont travel, i dont see how they will use it) 2) RM200 must be used together and you can't bring forward any balance shall your next purchase be less than that. And I shall add a THIRD reason for this 3) I had to submit my claim TWICE online and call AirAsia Call Center TWICE... so that's THREE times too much for such a simple claim! Just to give you a timeframe, my delayed flight was on 12/08/08. I only got my claim processed 12/26/08.
So, what's my point? Air Asia really needs to look into this to avoid turning away potential customers to MAS which now offers fairly competitive prices for its domestic routes. I understand Air Asia is a low-cost airline. But being low-cost is not a valid excuse for being late 50% of the time! To think about it, Air Asia these days are not that much cheaper than MAS.
To be fair, my flights prior to my last four was pleasant and I dont remember any significant delays. I also remember over time since I began to frequently use Air Asia, there was a moment when I started to use MAS as their promotional fares are cutting below Air Asia regular prices... then Air Asia eliminated fuel surcharges which brought its fares well below again. Consequently, I renewed my commitment with Air Asia...
Today, i am close and on the verge of switching to MAS and flying them whenever they have promotions... unless Air Asia comes up with something soon and quick, I believe I am not the only one among many frequent Air Asia users who would consider other options of travel.
Dear Mr Tony Fernandez, if you're reading this... being on-time is fundamental to the transportation business. I applaud all the things you're doing to improve the service of AirAsia (self check-in kiosks for boarding pass printout, new KLIA-East, new Call Center, etc). However, all these things will be of little importance if AirAsia customers are constantly being frustrated by their travel plans being messed up by flight delays.
