A letter to Tony

Had quite an experience traveling home last weekend and decided to share it with the man behind it all. Didn't expect much though. So, imagine my surprise when I received an email reply from The Man this morning.

Here is my original email :-

To the Management of AirAsia Berhad,

Flight #: AK 5806
Departure Date: 20 November 2011
Departure Airport: Penang
Destination Airport: Singapore
Assigned Seat #: 24D

Since January 2011, I have been a faithful monthly supporter of AirAsia, picking it above the other budget airlines to commute between my workplace (Singapore) and my home (Penang). So far, I have encountered the occasional flight delays but
thankfully, never encountered any flight cancellations or any other major changes.

However, the good impression I had of AirAsia was tarnished by a recent incident. Flight details as shared above. Dutifully, I performed my mobile check-in for my 20Nov flight on 18Nov. As usual, I received the 2D barcode and email confirmation on the same day (as per attached email). My SIN-PEN travel leg was smooth but I cannot say the same for my return leg from PEN-SIN. I learnt that AA double-booked the same seat to 2 different passengers. We’ve all heard about promotions of 2 tickets for the price of 1 but this is definitely a first to hear of 1 ticket for the price of 2!

I have attached a copy of my boarding pass which clearly stated that my assigned seat is 24D. However when I reached my seat, a guy was already seated at the same seat and when we compared boarding passes, we were both shocked to see that we were assigned the same seat for the same flight on the same travel date.

Now, if it was a human mistake, it would be understandable and somewhat acceptable. This, however, was an auto-allocation from your booking system. I learnt from the fellow passenger that he performed his mobile check-in and was allocated
that seat number by your automated system. Just like I was.

For a company that boasts of being the “Best low cost airline” award winner for many years running, it was indeed an unpleasant surprise and definitely a disappointment.
Now, I will be always wondering if the system is pulling a fast one on me every time I perform my mobile check-in. Definitely not good customer experience.

I had to stand at the back galley of the aircraft and waited for all the other passengers to board before the crew could find me a vacant seat to sit me for the flight. Fortunately, the flight was at 95% capacity, which meant that I didn’t have to be offloaded from the flight (Imagine a very stressful traveler on a late Sunday evening after a very busy weekend in Penang before heading back to prepare for an equally long week ahead in Singapore. Being offloaded would NOT be fun!).

Thankfully, this story has a good ending.

The crew on AK 5806 on that night were very helpful especially one particular crew by the name of Jeffrey Koh who did all he could to help abate my growing anxiety as I watched more and more passengers board the aircraft, taking up all the seats I could see that were vacant. So I would like to thank Jeffrey who helped turn an otherwise stressful traveling experience into a decent one. Decent enough to avoid a freaked out, grumpy passenger onboard an AA flight.

Having said that, I would still like to lodge an official complaint against the apparent gaps in your online booking system that have caused unnecessary anxiety to your passengers. Logic tells me that I would not be the only passenger encountering this for as long as the system gap is not addressed.

I hope this email gets to the right parties within the AirAsia organization so that some needed changes can be made for a better traveling experience for all of us faithful AirAsia passengers.

Thank you and have a nice day.
From: Eleen , a frequent AA traveler

And his response less than 24 hours later:-

Dear eleen, pls accept my sincerest apologies on what had transpired. It is embarrassing but definitely non-intentional. I suspect a tech glitch and certainly did not oversold your seat. Lau is the head of ICT and will revert on why this has occurred. Regards, tony

Followed by another email from the head of ICT within the same day.

Hi Eleen,We have begun checking how this could happen.Will revert shortly. Thank you.

Short and sweet.

Let's see if they have managed to turn this negative experience around. So far, I must admit I am somewhat impressed.