When I was reading about the chaos in the US and Heathrow London airports recently, it somehow reminds me back of what had happened to me last month. I experienced a similar thing, but not this bad. Heck, I almost forgot about this (and this post that was written during the delay). I managed to speak to some of the passengers, and they’ll bring this issue further to MAS (or MHSB) management, but I’m not sure if they’d actually do that.

I decided to post it today, in case MAS has bloggers or any of them reads blogs. For me, it is enough if I can voice my dissatisfaction through blog. I love blog!! I can be reached by everyone borderless, timeless. Btw, I have no mean to tarnish MAS image, but please.. take this as a lesson to improve your service. Instead of lesson learned and forgotten (or di tong sampahkan)

Last month, I was  outstation to Penang due to some work for 3 days. There is nothing better than going back to my house and meet my lovely wife, Mai and my cute baby Luqman. Since this is my 1st outstation after becoming a father, I miss them so much. But, it turned out to be the worst domestic travel that I ever have.

Before that let me talk sweet about MAS. I feel proud with our national carrier, Malaysian Airlines System or known MAS due to its ability to turn black (profit) in only 2 years after making no profit for few years (even though some of the profit is gained by selling their building).

I admit that the cabin crew is friendly, the service is fine and the boarding is on time, most of the time. I’ve been using MAS frequently for domestic travel so far, and I have no complaint against them, except on the fare which keeps on increasing from time to time due to worldwide fuel price increase. But there is one area that MAS should be looking at.

I hate to say this, but I was really pissed off when MAS cancelled the flight without prior notice. This happened to us, passenger flightMHXXX (I forgot the number) on Wednesday for flight 6.45 PM. That’s one thing. What made thing even worst is that, we the passengers have to wait on the ‘Stand by’ counter, looking for the next flight availability, with first come first serve basis.

Unfortunately the seats are limited, and most of us have to be satisfied with 11.25PM flight. However, the issue did not stop there, our flight was delayed again to 11.50PM before we all went on board and successfully landed inKLIA at almost 1 AM. I have to spend almost MYR100 to get LIMO, whereas normally I took ERL which cost me only MYR26. Duh..

At Penang Airport, we managed to talk to their supervisor wearing yellow coat (yeah, it is yellow), we could get some compensation if we write to them.WTF, I don’t really care about money (because this flight is paid by my company, hehe), but what we’re more concern is about time and the service itself.

The bottom line is, ground crews and their services are as important as their counter part cabin crews. They are the face of Malaysia, especially when similar flight also has quite a number of foreign passengers from the middle east and Japan. This is not the best way to handle this situation. MAS should allocate enough space on the next flight, or perhaps getting a bigger flight rather than scheduling them to have flight later of the day. We, customers didn’t care what your reason is, be it flight’s technical problem or so. Don’t you have any spare airplanes?

Ticketing service
First, they didn’t let us know about the delay. And second, I didn’t catch any announcements or messages informing the delay at the airport. Or maybe I had missed it (which I believe I didn’t), I was only informed when I reached the counter.

Long queue (and slow)
There was a long queue when I attempted to check in. I came in 1 hour and 15 minutes earlier. I’m not sure if MAS is blind or is pretending not to see the long queue on economy class. Perhaps MAS is cutting on cost, and trying to maximize their head count to get a better figure. But please, don’t you care about your customer’s experience dealing with you? Just imagine you’re on our side. How would you feel?? Happy??

Intolerant ground crew
1 thing that irritates me is, how harsh one of the ground crew is. I understand there is tense situation with every customer getting frustrated with what is going on. I took 1 incident that I witness in front of me, where 1 tourist is screaming at her, and she screamed back at her calling her ‘psycho’. I have no idea what got in her mind, but this is too much.

Customer care line
Having customer care line without no one answering the call is like providing a pipe without water.

Wireless hotspot
No free internet in airport, except TMNut TMnet Hotspot.

p/s: It’s been 1.5 months since it happens, but I only manage to complete this post by today.  Imagine how busy I’m.. LoL