I refer to the ad in The Star on the 5th of November (page 21 - refer to attached). Is this really a bad case of not checking an ad or is it a blatant disregard for the intelligence of us consumers? I'm definitely not one who is a rocket scientist, but I think a simple calculation of adding and subtracting can be accomplished by even a child 3 years and above. I have never seen anything like that before. Was it really a mistake? If so, it's totally UNACCEPTABLE for a company such as MAS. It then makes me wonder, was it intentional and deliberate? If so, shame on you! It's a disgrace if it is so. Don't ever insult my inteligence!! Check out the circled figure.

I refer to a fellow blogger on this site earlier, who stressed that he can't seem to get a seat on an MAS flight with their stated offers. So, having those offers may not necessarily be an offer after all, if only an extremely limited number can get hold of them.

AirAsia, thank you for managing my expectations as far as fares are concerned.

Dear AirAsia Guests,

I notice that lately we have received numerous complaints on our Call Centre response time. This is due to the huge success of AirAsia X, especially with the Perth and Melbourne route announcements. These new, exciting long-haul routes have resulted in longer talk-time between callers and our agents and subsequently caused our lines to be congested.

We did not anticipate this sudden surge in calls volume. However our Call Centre team headed by Sri Velayuthan has now identified and worked with our IT department to upgrade the Call Centre facility.

By Nov 6, our Call Centre will have enough agents and sufficient IT infrastructure to deal with the influx. By this, we aim to improve our Call Centre performance to 90% i.e. a drop call rate of 10% only. By January, we'll be moving to a high-tech Call Centre to cater to more calls.

We sincerely apologise for the frustrations caused by our Call Centre congestion but this is only due to our overwhelming business expansion. We have always been mindful in increasing cost as it will certainly lead to increasing fares. As the People's Airline, this is the last thing we want to happen.

We acknowledge that technology will cost us more but at the same time we are committed to giving you excellent service.

On another note, I have been working very hard with the team at AirAsia to look at reducing our fuel surcharge and you should look forward to the good news in the next couple of months.

In the meantime, if you have any problems or enquiries, do not hesitate to email
Sri Velayuthan at srivelayuthan@airasia.com or Hani Nurlena at haninurlena@airasia.com. Having a combined experience of 15 years in customer service between them, they will be happy to assist you.

Best regards,
Tony Fernandes