KUALA LUMPUR: A Malaysian couple's holiday to Melbourne ended on a sour note when their return AirAsia flight to Kuala Lumpur was postponed at the eleventh hour, causing them to incur additional expenses, to the extent of withdrawing their Amanah Saham Nasional Bhd (ASB) savings.
Via a series of tweets, the couple relived their horrific experience after they were stranded in Melbourne, Australia, since their return flight was rescheduled to a date five days later.
They posted their experience and attached the communication thread between themselves and the AirAsia customer service, which they claimed did not provide any help to them or the rest of the other stranded passengers who were supposed to board the D7 219 MEL- KUL Jan 2 flight, which had been postponed to today.
"We're supposed to board MEL-KUL on Jan 2, (but) it was cancelled and rescheduled to Jan 6. It was 5 days of expenses considering our flight is supposed to be at 7am in the morning.
"Our expenses has skyrocketed since we had to book a hotel last minute. I even withdrew my ASB, and funnily enough, the money was floating because of public holidays," the couple posted via a "Nazt F. @NazFarid" handle on Twitter.
The couple also explained that the public holidays had made it even harder for them to make any cash withdrawal from their Malaysian savings accounts.
"We've only had one meal a day on Jan 1 and 2 (since the money was floating due to the public holiday). We had called AirAsia Australia customer service (voicemail) and got no response till now. We filed a complaint to Mavcom (Malaysian Aviation Commission) via Flysmart, and also to AirAsia on Twitter. Also no feedback until now," the couple wrote in a subsequent post yesterday.
Nazt F. also tweeted that, after arriving in Malaysia, their travel insurance only allowed them to claim up to RM2,000 per person.
The couple also tagged Transport Minister Anthony Loke in their tweets.
Loke, who responded today, called on Mavcom to investigate the matter and asked the airline to apologise to all those affected.
He said: "I take note of your complaint. I will ask AirAsia X's management to apologise to all affected passengers. Mavcom will investigate the case."
Meanwhile, in a tweet today, the couple confirmed their arrival in Malaysia and added that the email they sent earlier had been acknowledged with a response for them to attach any conversation thread and a letter of concern for their complaint to be accelerated.