In late-August, my AirAsia flights to Kuala Lumpur from Kuching (AK5211 on Aug 23) and back (AK5212 on Aug 25) and my flight to Penang from Kuching (AK5951 on Aug 31) were delayed for an hour, 1 hour 15 minutes and 25 minutes respectively - just another three episodes of numerous flight delays that I have had to endure over the past few years when flying AirAsia.

AirAsia's CEO, Tony Fernandes, proudly boasts, 'Now everyone can fly!' What Tony and his airline conveniently omit to tell us in their advertising is that 'Everyone can fly on a regularly delayed basis and so miss important meetings and other appointments'. Indeed, given the airline's deep-seated inability to keep to its published schedules, I can only surmise that these flight delays are a deliberate and central feature of AirAsia's business operating plan.

All AirAsia does when its flights are delayed is to offer a hackneyed apology. Indeed, its ground staff and air crew are so good at this, stating that 'the flight is delayed since the plane arrived late or departed late'. They can make this standard apology very fluently these days, word for word, without any reference to their in-flight cue cards.

But if we passengers miss our check-in or are late for our flight by even a few minutes, we 'burn' our ticket, are disallowed from boarding the flight and are forced to purchase a completely new ticket for the next available flight.

Where then is the justice in this AirAsia policy? Is this not a case of unfair trade, of AirAsia blatantly ripping-off air travelers? Should not AirAsia in all fairness compensate us passengers monetarily whenever our flights are delayed? Just as we get penalised monetarily for being late for our flights, Air Asia should equally compensate us by reimbursing our whole airfare for flight delays.

Note also AirAsia's administrative charge of RM20 per flight within Malaysia. Excuse me, but what is this charge for? To continue financing an inefficiently-run airline so that we can all fly regularly on a delayed basis? Given AirAsia's inability to fly on schedule, this charge is unfair and cynically aimed at profiting AirAsia, which recently declared an unaudited profit of RM498 million for the period ending June 30, 2007. Superprofits on the back of a sub-standard service to us passengers.

And the epitome of this sub-standard service is AirAsia's continued use of rented, aging, and even smelly Boeing 737-300 planes on its non-KL routes like what we in Sarawak and Sabah have to put up with. What was that about AirAsia going fully Airbus from June 2007? Is there not a huge AirAsia signboard along the KLIA highway to Sepang that states just this? By continuing to deploy such aging aircraft despite its claim to use new Airbuses, AirAsia thus also indulges in deceptive advertising.

And yet, the bitter irony is that we passengers are the ones who have made AirAsia an amazing success story and Tony Fernandes and his shareholder partners fabulously rich. Indeed, AirAsia says this as much in its advertising but in reality, AirAsia treats us passengers like dirt.

Is this then not a case of AirAsia having a cynical management that is truly contemptuous of us passengers as they rake in the profits? Take Tony Fernandes's cynical reply about AirAsia delays as further evidence. On Thursday, Aug 23, after I complained to Tony Fernandes via SMS about frequent flight delays disrupting my important appointments, I received a rude SMS reply from Tony saying, 'Then go talk to the rain. And talk to MAB (Malaysia Airports Bhd)'.

Thus, as I see it, AirAsia is little more than just another ugly and greedy monopoly, albeit one that supposedly operates in the low-cost airline sector that progressively gets more expensive as time goes by. But I guess this is what 'Malaysia Boleh' is all about, ie, all public relations with little substance.