I welcomed the start of AirAsia into the travel scene with great joy as the inefficiencies of the ‘main carrier’ were becoming a pain in the butt!

You, AirAsia, started well and ‘everyone who could fly’ once could ring up and make changes to your flights and to baggage allowances without too much problems. That was then but where to from here?

I think that you have expanded too much too fast. You can no longer respond to phone calls in a timely manner. I called and waited for 20 minutes and gave up after not receiving a response other than sales 'chatter'.

I called again up to five times and at different times of the day and held on for more that five minutes (real time) and still could not get through to you but had to listen to chatter about having ‘something to smile about’!

The something I might have had to smile about soon turned into a scowl due to getting no response for so long. I would not mind holding on for half-an-hour if I was making a local call but unfortunately I called from Australia and international phone calls are not cheap.

As AirAsia has gone international I think you should get your act together and fix these types of problems. Examples of how you can improve your efficiency are given below.

1. Set up dedicated lines for international calls;

2. Get more staff if you are having 'promotions' and

3. Get your customers to do your work by improvements to your on-line (Internet) booking system with capabilities to increase baggage allowances on-line, change flights/times on-line, seat selection etc; just like how Tiger Air does.

4. Have a facility to allow us to leave a message for you to call back after being on 'Hold’ for say six minutes.

You owe your customers that little bit of courtesy if you are busy and cannot take their calls.

5. Lastly and not least, have the decency of having an e-mail address that one can use to communicate with you if all other ways to contact you fail.

Your e-mail notices of flight time changes cannot be responded to nor is there a phone contact number to get in touch with you in a timely manner.

Your very existence depends on your clientele and customers and ill-treatment of them will only result in them moving on to another provider.

Please be aware that many of your customers are probably having connecting flights with other carriers. If you do not care for their needs (just because your rules say you are not responsible for missing connecting flights) even though you changed your flight times, you will slowly bur surely corrode your client base. They will move on to more 'caring' airlines.

I hope for your own and your customers good you will take heed of my positive advice given at no cost at all.