The tale of a budget airline passenger

The tale of a budget airline passenger..

AirAsia. Who does not know the name of the red coporate coloured best budget airline in the world. It is an honour for Malaysia to have such an airline that practically made its mark in the world.
I myself, is a big fan of AirAsia. Needless to say the tagline "Everyone can fly" worked well on me. The carrier took me to many places to date and explore the other countries especially in Asia region.
I always admire the growth of AirAsia.

That was just an introduction that is not particularly necessary..here comes the big story...

After flying AirAsia for a few times, I began to detect some flaws of the airline. One of AirAsia flaws from my point of view : the cabin crew.

Putting aside the out-of-thebed hairstyles and over makeups,i can summarize the fact that there are only two extremes when it comes to the cabin crew.. It is either too much, or just too little.

Lets go with the TOO MUCH

- some of them wore too much make up that some did look like a drag, rather than a straight lady.. seriously! i dont know whether they actually realise this or not.
- some of them put too much slang to rush the scripts that they have to announce till somehow it is hard to catch what they were actually saying.If you are a malay, be one. so what! speak properly, respect the language.. your mother tongue
- too much slur of words, made them anounnce an announcement either sounded like having a short breath of everything just went into a loooooooooooong sentence.
- too much friendliness made them look too fake. OMG.. ladies and gentlemen, cabin crew of AirAsia, I would appreciate if you all can just be yourself. Why bother being plastically friendly ?
- too much proud, made some of them dashed through the LCCT like they are the only people having a flight to catch. haihhh..

TOO LITTLE..

- there this one time i was in the last flight.. the stewardess did not even touch-up her make up, resulting to oily face and the signature out-of-bed look that applies too quite a number of the cabin crews around.
- too little time to do up their hair i guess..try take a stroll in the morning at LCCT. u can somehow notice that for the morning flights, to see the stewardess coming with the hair not blown and set accordingly is a common sight. Hey people, it does not cost you a bomb to blow your hair in the morning.
- too little customer oriented.. somehow, the cabin crews are not always pleasant.. n i wonder why..
- too little teamwork.. when this happened in certain flights.. u can observe how disorganize it can be.. u either get your food too late.. or u just lost your appetite to eat.
- too little care.. sometimes, i notice that, they are somehow not a sensitive human being.. in many sense.i wish that they are more sensitive towards their working environment.oh ya, talking bout being sensitive, there was this stewardess in uniform was smoking in public with her boyfriend at LCCT. oh my, miss.. you are with your uniform.. cant u just smoke somewhere else.. the children are watching.. the others are watching..it does not look good..

Well..im not saying all.. but SOME, are just like that. Everytime I board AirAsia, there must be at least something about the cabin crews.. be it the stewardess or the steward himself, both have their fair share of stories to be brought back home.

As for my recent trip to Phuket..

It was very nerve recking experience.. I almost yelled at the steward! hohoho. I managed to keep my calm because definitely, I do not want to ruin the start of my holiday.

Here goes the epic...

I was boarding AirAsia AK822 kul-hkt. The first flight out to Phuket. Being quite sleepy, I doze off after the plane took off... the journey was supposed to be about 1hr15mins. I thought I will wake up for my breakfast so less potential to oversleep. As I was sleeping nicely, my mum woke me up.. "Mi, wake up, we're arriving soon.. We're passing penang already"
my first thought was,"Where on earth is my PRE ORDERED nasi lemak for breakfast?? "
I was seated at seat number 25.. nearly at the back of the plane and i saw the cabin crew was just halfway through the aisle. To my uttermost surprise, they did not bother giving out the PRE ORDERED food first. They were giving out food, as well as taking orders. Oh my.. I could feel that my blood temparature was heating up..
I took a deep breath, and keep my cool... waiting patiently for the cart to arrive..
About 10 mins, the long awaited cart of gold arrived, I handed my boarding pass and.. and... and.. and.. and did not actually know what he was doing with my boarding pass. It took my watch a complete trace of circle for him just to hand in my long awaited nasi lemak.
After sorting out the hot beverages and payment, he pushed the cart and I was smiling at my long awaited nasi lemak. Gleefully,as i touched the silver foil to open the container...the pilot broke my heart with his words...
"Dear Ladies and gentlemen.. we will be arriving shortly.. please fasten your seatbelt and keep your seat upright..bla bla bla"
I was arriving.. and I just got my PRE ORDERED meal??? whatwas that??
Replying to the rock songs played in my tummy, I forced myself to swallow as much as I could in that short period of time because my next meal will be in the afternoon for lunch and I definitely could not let my tummy empty.

Current situation at that time:
- hungry tummy
- i had just minutes to finish my PRE ORDERED meal
- the nasi lemak was not as hot as usual
- the nasi was even harder than its normal form
- the pilot was slowing down and decreasing the altitude

adding up to the pile of misery as it already was...

the steward and stewardess was standing near to my place to take away the food !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
they were waiting for us to finish.. or more like, they wanted to just snatched the food away.
OMG.. i could not believe the situation at all! They knew they gave the PRE ORDERED meal late, and they had the face to just wait at my side for us to gave up eating and threw it away.
I felt like choking!
They made me swallowed my nasi lemak in less than 10 minutes.. and as expected, I could not finish the meal as I usually did. How could I even finish the food when put under pressure like that??
It felt horrible! to the maximum! I was reaching my boiling point... and a few more deep breath, and I started to calm down again.

However, as usual.. they will have their promotional announcement before landing.. and a sentence really made me wanna puke. I was turning green as the promotional line was announced.. it went somthing like this
"dont forget to pre-order your meals online to enjoy your meals earlier.."
WHAT THE TUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT???
My middle finger was badly begging me to stick itself out to the leading steward face!
It was a complete nonsense!

So AK822 landed safely.. and thank god it was a smooth landing.Very soft and smooth, credit to the pilot.

As I thought the epic will end then, it continued when my dad opened his mouth to the unidentified-confusing-orientation leading steward, complaining about the late PRE ORDERED meal and how he was being forced to drink the hot milo in short period of time. Obviously, he could only managed to take a small sip, and that was it. His meal? he too could not finish, thanks to the guardian of the foil container that was standing next to us, waiting for the container to be passed back and thrown away.

I would say that the leading steward was rude.. he was answering back in an improper way. not just that, i do not think he was even admitting his mistake when he gave this as an answer
"but nothing can be done.. we had bout 79 pre-ordered meals... if im a passenger, i would be angry as well"

wow! that was an EXCUSE.excuse, excuse, excuse..

At that moment, I knew it was pointless to talk to the leading steward anymore. I'd rather share the story with all of you... ;)

Things that the team on AK822 KUL-HKT, 21.09.09, 715am flight could improve on:

- no matter how many pre-ordered meals you got, it does not matter, just serve the pre-ordered meals first.
- DO NOT take orders along the way, even a kid knows that it will definitely slow down the pace of the serving. Did you all just forgotten the fact that you lose out soo much time to excessively smile,slowly took time to collect the boarding passes like it was a piece of paper that had to be handled with extra tender loving care, and in the case of non preordered meals, took the orders and handed it slowly.. and returned the change slowly... it was just toooooooo slow to be true! Helloooooooo~
- DO NOT blame the short flight time, it was you who did not coooperate among yourselves.
- please ADMIT your mistake. it was a mistake of your own for failing to delegate the job well.
- LISTEN to what the customer had to say. oh cmon, flying AirAsia a few times, you could already tell when the food will be pushed, what will be announced, when and what will happen next, etc. You are not facing with passengers that are new to AirAsia.cmon~ get a life!

AK822 leading steward complained on failing to deliver the pre-ordered meals earlier was due to the short time of flight and numbers of preordered meal. The irony was that, my flight back from HKT-KUL took only 1hr 4mins.. and I got my PRE ORDERED meal just 20 mins after the plane took off. I did not see the flight time as a problem at all.

I may be flying with the best budget airline in the world.. but not the best cabin crew just yet. From my honest opinion, to get the best cabin crew award, if the quality of AirAsia cabin crew stall at its current state, AirAsia definitely has a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong way to go to achieve the best cabin crew award. It will take more than hardwork for them to improve.

everyone can fly~ so does the nuisance cabin crews.. they can go fly kite! sigh..

I always admire AirAsia and adore Datuk Tony.. I saw the progress it had as it grew.. I flew with AirAsia since it was just using its boeings.. and I also flew with AirAsia X with its A340..I love to see it made its mark but I do wish that they can do something about their cabin crew.

xoxo
eyem3