Let me add my experience with AirAsia to the long list of complaints that it has accumulated in malaysiakini over the years.

My family flew in December 2006 to Phnom Penh and Siem Riep and I'll use our experience on those flights to illustrate what I mean.

Be prepared for the kind of delays you will never tolerate from other airlines. Flight AK852 to Phnom Penh was scheduled to fly at 3.15pm but on Dec 15, 2006, we only took off at 4.30pm. Our friend took the same flight on Dec 16 and her plane also left around 4.30pm. That's a delay of at least one hour on two consecutive days but this delay time appeared routine to AirAsia staff and they never even bothered to make any announcements.

The worse was yet to come. Our flight back was delayed for more than four hours. So, potential AirAsia fliers, please get used to the fact that there will be endless waits for your flights. And since most of you, like us, will be on holiday, bring along extra doses of holiday spirit.

This is because AirAsia won't tell you that flights are delayed until it's too late. When we were checking in at Siem Reap airport in the morning, I am certain that the AirAsia staff knew by then that the flight was going to be delayed. If we were told then, we could have delayed our check-in and even had food outside the airport.

My handphone was on international roaming. AirAsia could have sent a text message to me even before I left my hotel that morning. It chose not to. Throughout the four hours delay at Siem Reap, not a single announcement was made by the ground staff. I had to hunt down the staff to get whatever little bit of information that I could pry out of them.

I can only conclude that AirAsia doesn't have the interests of their customers at the top of their priorities. So if you are going to travel by AirAsia, forget about being kept in the loop.

And forget about getting food during the long wait too. The airport at Siem Reap had only one caf operating in the international lounge and prices for a meal started at US$10. Now correct me if I am wrong but aren't AirAsia travellers mostly low-budget tourists? How are they expected to pay that kind of money especially when travelling as a family?

The totally unresponsive ground staff in Siem Reap refused to listen to pleas for food and refreshments. It didn't matter to them that we could not leave the terminal after already having cleared immigration. They weren't bothered that most of us were not carrying food because AirAsia does not allow food on board. They didn't care two hoots about the fact that there were at least half-a-dozen children below 10 on the flight and another half-dozen senior citizens.

When our demands became stronger, they came up with the excuse that they will only provide food if the delay was longer than four hours. Apparently their Terms and Conditions of Travel said so. Of course, none of their staff could show us a copy of their conditions. Their printer was also down along with their plane. I came back to KL and checked the terms I had received. There was nothing about a four-hour delay in the terms.

For the record, the passengers were only served food on board the plane at around 5pm after we pointed out to the Second Officer that the ground staff had promised food for delays longer than four hours. Faced with possible mutinous passengers (to tell the truth, we were just about ready to kill anyone in an AirAsia uniform by then), the captain graciously announced refreshments for all. But it's worth emphasising that this only happened because we insisted. If we had kept quiet, I'm sure we would have got nothing.

Now, apart from this it took AirAsia a mind boggling 57 days, 22 hours, 26 minutes and 55 seconds to open and reply the e-mail I sent them on this issue. This was despite their automated e-mail reply system promising me a reply within 10 days.

The e-mail reply I got was totally unsatisfactory too. It said they give refreshments after a three-hour delay. Their staff in Siem Reap obviously did not know this. Or maybe AirAsia just made the rule up. Their Terms and Conditions document does not state it and AirAsia did not reply when I asked where this was stated.

Apparently, AirAsia also keeps its planes running on full schedules. There seem to be no spare planes to cover for technical breakdowns. In Seam Reap, we basically had to wait for a plane to complete another scheduled flight elsewhere. That plane flew to Seam Reap after that.

This raises valid questions as to whether AirAsia could be pushing planes beyond their limits. I'd like AirAsia to comment on this issue because there have been crashes in other countries that are being attributed to planes being overworked.

So potential AirAsia travellers; please don't write off our experience as an isolated incident. Take the time to speak to anyone who has flown on AirAsia recently and you'll see that our experience is very much the average quality of service that you can expect from Air Asia.

I'm not saying that you should not fly AirAsia. Even I will probably have to do so one day soon. The fact remains that there are just no other low-cost alternatives yet. But the next time around, I will be prepared with lots of instant noodles and a video recorder. I want Tony Fernandez to see what he is subjecting us to.