Local Budget Airline – New Rules

Another trip to the East. Our three grandchildren were all looking forward to our arrival. They were excited when we talked to them over the telephone to say that we were coming. We returned from Sita’s house on Friday evening and our flight out to visit Shaffik and family was on Saturday afternoon. Our PJ house has become like a transit house over the past couple of months. Although we were in KL/PJ area on alternate weeks we were hardly at home as we had to attend to various commitments and run different errands.

We purchased tickets on the budget airline some weeks ago for this trip to Shaffik’s house. It had been quite a while since our last trip there. It was Christmas/New Year holidays when we were last there and it has been about seven months since then. There have been some changes in the reservation/purchase process for the budget airline. They apparently saw potential of making extra money in their loading procedure and had implemented a procedural change to make that extra.

Previously, all one has to do was to log on to the airline website, pick the from and to locations and the dates of travel, agree to the terms and conditions of sale and purchase, make the payment and confirm the bookings. On the day of travel and after producing proof of identity, one will be given a boarding pass which will be used at the boarding gate for boarding, sometimes with producing proof of identity again and sometime not, depending on the mood of the person in charge I suppose. Boarding will be done in an orderly manner. Families with little children, the elderly and those requiring assistance will be allowed to board first, followed by other passengers. This system had been working very well since the start of the airline’s operations.

When making the online purchase for the current trip I noticed some changes in the procedure. If one requires priority boarding one has to pay an additional fee for the privilege. On travel day those with priority boarding were allowed to board first. The others will board en-masse. Never mind if one was elderly, traveled in a family with young children, or slow requiring aid and assistance, one had to join the ‘en-masse’ crowd. This is where you see the ugly side of the people; the jostling and pushing to be in the front; the ‘me first and I do not care about you’ moves; the everyone on his own attitude or some people, especially the Chinese, call it ‘kiasu’ attitude revealing their ugly heads!!

On this trip we notice that there were only about ten or so people who purchased the priority boarding. We did not take the option of purchasing the priority boarding, so we had to join the crowd for normal boarding. The priority boarders were allowed to board first but not before the names of some of them to be called several times over the PA system to board. This is where I see the system as being unfriendly to the masses. Since the priority boarders know that they have priority, there is no sense of urgency in them. All others have to wait for them while they take their time browsing and whiling away at the shopping outlets in the departure lounge, “oh they can wait, I have priority boarding”!! Huh, another kiasu attitude. There alone we wasted about 15 minutes while the boarding staff kept calling and calling the names of the priority boarders!! Only after these boarders have boarded the plane were we allowed to board. The jostling, pushing and the rushing continued. Ram and I were not too far from the front of the queue but because of the distance we had to walk to board the plane with me slowly walking, walking stick and all, we ended being at the later end of the queue when we reached the aircraft. There were still plenty of empty seats when we boarded, hence no hassle there, but to think that people were rushing and pushing only shows the ugly side of traveling cheap!! One consolation though, we were seated together and we had the use of three seats between the two of us. Plenty of leg and elbow room!! Some comfort and yet traveling cheap, ha ha. I do not know how it will be like on our return journey come next Saturday. I only hope it won’t be none the worse then……… Ahhhh…. Whatever it is we will continue to use this cheaper mode of travel when necessary for our travels, so we can’t be complaining too much. We are looking forward to the time when this airline fly the long-haul routes to Europe and UK as we have strong reasons now to travel there. Will write and ramble on about this in the future……….

MKI Ramblings Unlimited
Petaling Jaya