This is an e-mail I’ve received from AirAsia just a moment ago.
Dear Valued Guest,
AirAsia regrets to advise that our flight AK 6083, scheduled to depart from Kota Kinabalu(BKI) to Sibu (SBW) on 26thoctober09 unfortunately has been totaly CANCEL.
Should you require further assistance, or if you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to call center 03-217192222/03-217193333 or log on to our website at www.airasia.com. We appreciate your understanding of our position in this matter and hope your future flights with us will be pleasant and problem free.
Yours sincerely,
AirAsia Bhd
First of all, what a shame on their web notification department. Take a look at their e-mail.
“26thoctober09″ – What is that? Your keyboard’s space bar broken?
“totaly CANCEL.” – Spelling and grammatical error – Should be “totally canceled.”
So which Ah Beng or Ah Lian were hired to write this e-mail Mr. Tony Fernandez?
I mean, it should have been [b]ON[/b] schedule!!! NOT [b]canceled[/b]! What the heck is going on with AirAsia?
But, this Ah Beng-ish e-mail is the best thing that I could ever wished for, forget that dreaded miserable canceled flight. They actually gave me 3 months advance notice for me to arrange a different way to travel back. Such great service you have AirAsia!
We appreciate your understanding of our position in this matter and hope your future flights with us will be pleasant and problem free.
Yeah, hope is always no hope at all. Can’t really hope on you, AirAsia! They just tell me that it’s canceled without even giving me a possible alternative to that.
The itinerary includes a flight from KK to Manila, and from Manila back to KK, and on a connecting flight, I’m supposed to fly back to Sibu on the same day. If that’s so, am I entitled to cancel the whole flight schedule and get a full refund since it’s all under AirAsia?
1. david | July 31st, 2009 at 4:36 pm
whole my family get into these matter!!!!!
what can we do?
who can help us?
where are our YB speaker?
why Mas Wing still can fly? Monopoly?
Airasia should do something!!!!
whole my family booked ticket for few thousand ringgit and Airasia just give us 3 month to restructure the flight???
What happen to Malaysia??????
It’s not something we could shout and do about, you can go to AirAsia’s Facebook page and lodge a complaint. Tony Fernandez will read that.
2. ken | July 31st, 2009 at 9:31 pm
You are indeed very lucky to receive 3 months notice from airasia on cancellation of flight. My flight from kl to macau on end oct was cancelled but without notice. I’m still awaiting an email/sms from airasia.
How did you know that it was cancelled? You can go to AirAsia center to find out dude.
3. eN | August 6th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
No rescheduled flight??? WTF?
AirAsia tries to win back the KK-Sibu route. I hope they succeed!
4. Wuching | August 10th, 2009 at 7:15 am
cheap airline mah, watudo? hire cheap ah bengs lor!
I wonder how’s JetStar doing hor..
5. Buddy | August 12th, 2009 at 11:20 am
My flight from Johor Bahru to Bangkok on 24 Sept 09 is also cancelled, how do we get a refund ? I’ve been trying to find an email address on AIRASIA.com that I can write to, but unable to find one. I need some help… How do we claim our money back (since I already paid for it last month) ?
You can go to your nearest AirAsia centre (not those agents) to enquire about the refunds. Or call their hotline.
6. Mohd Salleh Tabrani | August 12th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Hello everyone,
I’d like to take this opportunity to comment on this conversation, and to help clarify the situation revolving around the Kota Kinabalu-Sibu route. The Kota Kinabalu-Sibu route is exclusive to the operator of Rural Air Services (RAS) because AirAsia had in fact requested for routes exclusivity when its subsidiary, FAX operated the RAS.
This took place during the domestic rationalisation exercise of March 2006, and AirAsia demanded for exclusive rights to almost all of the air routes within and intra Sabah and Sarawak, which naturally included the Kota Kinabalu-Sibu route. Only AirAsia’s subsidiary, FAX had the exclusive rights to ply these routes.
Therefore, we were following the RAS Agreement that is in place, and allegations of us forcing AirAsia out of the KK-Sibu route is in fact untrue. In addition, it should also be pointed out that AirAsia is bound by the RAS Agreement and as such, cannot fly these routes, which is only afforded to FAX.
Perhaps a little more history behind what actually took place: AirAsia, through FAX, took over RAS from MAS in 2006, and received higher subsidies as compared to MASwings for the same scope of air services. However, AirAsia quickly surrendered (13 months) RAS back to Malaysia Airlines when they realised how unprofitable the routes were. Is this a case of cherry picking and choosing only to operate on profitable routes? I leave it to your kind selves to make your own conclusion.
Regardless of how this is perceived, it is clear that loss of taxpayer’s money is involved here. As many of you may know, we cross subsidise profitable routes (such as the KK-Sibu route) with other unprofitable routes. By doing this, we in fact help save taxpayer’s money, as MASwings’ P&L is born by the government. There is also the untold story of job loss, as we were forced to retrench hundreds of long serving staff in Sabah and Sarawak under a Mutual Seperation Scheme, due to the initial handover handover in 2006.
Lastly, it is also noteworthy to mention that MAS handed over seven Fokker 50 as well as five Twin Otter aircraft to FAX, all of which were in excellent flying condition. When MASwings resumed RAS operations in 2007, 50% of the Fokker 50 aircraft and almost all of the Twin Otter aircraft were not airworthy. As a result, we spent an additional RM36 million to restore these aircraft back to operational conditions.
I hope that with this, you have a clearer picture of what has transpired, and will help everyone to better understand the situation with the facts in hand.
Thank you.
Encik Mohd Salleh Tabrani
Managing Director
MASwings
Thank you very much Mr. Tabrani for the in-depth explanation on the issue. I’m surprised that it wasn’t from an AirAsia representative.
By the way, I was wondering why did the government handover RAS to FAX in the first place, when they know that they’ve to give out higher subsidies? That is immediately a turn-down in business sense.
7. Shameem | March 22nd, 2011 at 4:00 pm
well, the email template is given to the staffs,
and the staffs will copy the template, without looking at the grammar !