Update: for a hilarious report on the trip visit Kennysia.com, for an Indonesian perspective of the trip read Ollie, who also has this photo of Enda and Unspun pretending to be Austins Powers amid a bevy of Air Asia flight stewardesses at LCCT, Kuala Lumpur (photo grabbed from Ollie’s blog).
Enda and Unspun trying to look cool among a bevy of hot Air Asia stewedesses while other guys try to muscle in on our act
Elephants can fly and Unspun can be invited by Air Asia on an event they sponsored.
Improbable as it sounds Unspun was actually invited by Air Asia to spend ASEAN’s 42nd Anniversary in Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok – all within a day.
Indonesian blogger Ollie poses with the AirAsia girls.
Aug 10, 2009 – This post is filed under English, Ideas, Social Media The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) celebrated its 42nd birthday on Saturday with a difference. It took to the skies for an event that took in three ASEAN cities in a day. Maverick Network dispatched our Technical Advisor Ong Hock Chuan as his alter ego, the vinegary and skeptical Unspun, to cover this event. This is his report.
It is ironic and unsaid, but Unspun suspects he was invited to the ASEAN’s 42nd anniversary celebrations on Saturday because he’s been critical of Air Asia in several postings in the past.
One thing you have to admire about the Air Asia guys though, is that they take criticism in their stride and rather than go into denial, they take on board the criticisms and engage their critics.
Unbelievable …. How can Air Asia did this “stupidity” to their passengers? …… Hehehehehe
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AirAsia Receives Reprimand After Irked Passengers Revolt
Budget airline AirAsia got a tongue lashing from Medan’s Polonia Airport authority on Monday for neglecting passengers booked for a flight to Jakarta on Sunday night that was cancelled after a five-hour delay.
Metro TV reported that at one stage some of the passengers had threatened to take airline staff hostage for delaying and then cancelling their flight.
“We should have taken off at 7:10 p.m., then the flight was delayed to 9:30 p.m. and then to midnight, and then they told us it was delayed until Monday but we still don’t know for sure. There is no clear information,” a distraught passenger told Metro TV before ultimately flying to Jakarta on Monday.
Passengers had shouted at AirAsia staff and banged their fists on the service counters.
The airline did not give any reason for the delay.
Airport administrator Razali Abubakar said that according to regulations, airlines must be reprimanded if they fail to look after their passengers.
Razali said if a flight was delayed for an hour or two, passengers should be informed. If it’s delayed for three hours, accommodation should be found for them. Though the flight was delayed for several hours on Sunday, AirAsia failed to offer help to passengers.
Razali said AirAsia was likely losing market share to other airlines such as Lion Air.
He said the company’s financial woes could account for a reduction in its fleet and diminished quality of its services.
AirAsia staff members said upset passengers had raised a fuss at the airport, but said they had ultimately been flown to Jakarta on several different flights on Monday.
After the invite and being a sponsor of the event, does this change your perception about AirAsia to your previous “AirAsia sucks” posting series? I am just wondering what are your thoughts.
@Kongkor: I wasn’t a sponsor of the event. It was a deal between Air Asia and Asean Secretariat. Unspun was invited because he had been a critic (hopefully a harsh but a fair one) of Air Asia and all other organizations that occasionally forget their customer service skills.
Unspun was also introduced to Tony Fernandez on the plane as the blogger who’s been taking potshots of him an his airline. Tony’s response was simply, “well, we try.”
Which I think is good enough. Organizations like Air Asia and bosses like Tony need, to paraphrase an editorial advisor to The Jakarta Globe, “an honest broker” of perceptions.
It is too easy when you are successful to loose track of reality because too many people that surround you want to give you only the good news and filter out the bad. But the smarter ones listen well to their critics and take their opinions as gifts to help them improve.
So to answer your question, Unspun shall be Unspun as much as possible and rap Air Asia’s knuckles when they deserve it, like how they are supposed to have mistreated their passengers in Medan.
What I don’t get it is that since Air Asia has a whole social media team, what are they doing to engage their critics? Is there an explanation for Medan? If so why haven’t the social media team let us know about it when @The Wing of Eagle posted his comment here? Buta gaji ya?
Unspun 
I guess Air Asia will be taking the latest incident in Medan in their collective stride as well 😀
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Thanks Pak Ong for the picture ^^ Nice to know you
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Same here Ollie. My pleasure. I also grabbed a photo from your blog for this posting. Hope you don’t mind.
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Unbelievable …. How can Air Asia did this “stupidity” to their passengers? …… Hehehehehe
—
AirAsia Receives Reprimand After Irked Passengers Revolt
Budget airline AirAsia got a tongue lashing from Medan’s Polonia Airport authority on Monday for neglecting passengers booked for a flight to Jakarta on Sunday night that was cancelled after a five-hour delay.
Metro TV reported that at one stage some of the passengers had threatened to take airline staff hostage for delaying and then cancelling their flight.
“We should have taken off at 7:10 p.m., then the flight was delayed to 9:30 p.m. and then to midnight, and then they told us it was delayed until Monday but we still don’t know for sure. There is no clear information,” a distraught passenger told Metro TV before ultimately flying to Jakarta on Monday.
Passengers had shouted at AirAsia staff and banged their fists on the service counters.
The airline did not give any reason for the delay.
Airport administrator Razali Abubakar said that according to regulations, airlines must be reprimanded if they fail to look after their passengers.
Razali said if a flight was delayed for an hour or two, passengers should be informed. If it’s delayed for three hours, accommodation should be found for them. Though the flight was delayed for several hours on Sunday, AirAsia failed to offer help to passengers.
Razali said AirAsia was likely losing market share to other airlines such as Lion Air.
He said the company’s financial woes could account for a reduction in its fleet and diminished quality of its services.
AirAsia staff members said upset passengers had raised a fuss at the airport, but said they had ultimately been flown to Jakarta on several different flights on Monday.
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Ong,
After the invite and being a sponsor of the event, does this change your perception about AirAsia to your previous “AirAsia sucks” posting series? I am just wondering what are your thoughts.
Cheers.
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@Kongkor: I wasn’t a sponsor of the event. It was a deal between Air Asia and Asean Secretariat. Unspun was invited because he had been a critic (hopefully a harsh but a fair one) of Air Asia and all other organizations that occasionally forget their customer service skills.
Unspun was also introduced to Tony Fernandez on the plane as the blogger who’s been taking potshots of him an his airline. Tony’s response was simply, “well, we try.”
Which I think is good enough. Organizations like Air Asia and bosses like Tony need, to paraphrase an editorial advisor to The Jakarta Globe, “an honest broker” of perceptions.
It is too easy when you are successful to loose track of reality because too many people that surround you want to give you only the good news and filter out the bad. But the smarter ones listen well to their critics and take their opinions as gifts to help them improve.
So to answer your question, Unspun shall be Unspun as much as possible and rap Air Asia’s knuckles when they deserve it, like how they are supposed to have mistreated their passengers in Medan.
What I don’t get it is that since Air Asia has a whole social media team, what are they doing to engage their critics? Is there an explanation for Medan? If so why haven’t the social media team let us know about it when @The Wing of Eagle posted his comment here? Buta gaji ya?
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