Day +1307 : Finally AirAsia allows reprint of boarding pass :-(

I am fine today.

I quote from my blog “Day +647 : Back to kampong with web check-in” regarding the web check-in service.

One shortcoming of the AirAsia web check-in is that no reprint of boarding pass is allowed. Once a passenger checks in through the web but fail to print out the boarding pass due to whatever circumstances, there is no way for him/her to reprint the boarding pass. This happened to Richard and he called and demanded AirAsia to email him the boarding pass, but AirAsia advised him to do a normal over the counter check-in which Richard angrily declined. He insisted that the web check-in service should allow a passenger to reprint the boarding pass.

The support staff said that the reprint feature could not be provided due to security reason, but Richard argued that the feature has nothing to do with security. Indeed, it has nothing to with security. People can print or photocopy as many boarding passes as they want.

In the end, Richard took my boarding pass which bore the same flight information apart from the passenger’s name. He printed his name and sticked it over my name and then made a photo copy of the boarding pass.

He boarded the plane successfully with the fake boarding pass :-) This proves that AirAsia should provide the reprint feature for the convenience of passengers so that they don’t have to take the hassle to DIY (Dot It Yourself) the boarding pass, as what Richard did.

Richard sent me the following story.

Finally AirAsia has to allow reprint of boarding pass else it would be more costly for them to bear the cost of technical support. Its call center is always overloaded. They are unable to handle all the incoming call and waiting time of 30 minutes is expected for each call :-( A few months ago, when we waited patiently for about 30 minutes, the support staff would pick up the line to take down the reservation no., name and contact no. and then promised to call back in 24 hours. But today, if you call them, you will get an immediate respond from a staff (not the machine), "All our staff is busy at the moment, please give us the reservation no., name and contact no. They promise will call back in 24 hours"

I would like to share with you an interesting story about the quality of support offered by MAS and AirAsia.

Somebody wanted to compare the service between MAS and AirAsia. They would like to found out which airline offered better service. When it came to the call centre service, both of them had to agree that AirAsia is better. Why? The reason is explained below.

One day, both of them called MAS and AirAsia to seek for some information. They dialed the call centre at the same time; one to MAS call centre and the other one to AirAsia call centre. After waiting for 3 minutes, a colleague came to knock at their door and said that his car was running out battery and needed their help for a jump start urgently. Both of them rushed to the car park and took about 40 minutes to make jump start the car.

After that, they rushed back again to pick up the line. The one who called AirAsia still heard the machine saying "...for all flight booking and reservation, please visit our website at www.airsia.com..." but his friend found out that the MAS line was already terminated; might be quite some time ago.

So the one who called AirAsia said proudly to his friend, "Now you can see yourself, I do not need to redial again, my line is still active. Your MAS already suspended you call..."

See you next post :-)