Malaysian Airlines System (MAS)

I am somewhat proud of any home grown brand or successful business, and I would certainly like to see the same for our national airlines. Looking at the recently released financial reports for MAS, they seem to be doing a lot better than were a year ago (on the that the numbers truly reflect better things to come rather than just the sales of property and other extraordinary gains). However, I fear that over-aggressive cost control measures in inappropriate areas may affect costumer satisfaction.

I am not sure when MAS lest did a customer satisfaction survey, but I would not count a very impressive result. On my last trip to Singapore on the 22nd of November from KLIA, my flight was delayed by 5 hrs. In fact the 10.40pm flight I was scheduled to board never arrived, so I made a beeline for the other available flight via the transfer desk. All MAS had to offer at this point was a meal voucher redeemable at a fast food chain at KLIA. I missed my dinner meeting with some colleagues in Singapore, and ended up checking in at the hotel in Singapore at only 1am. Needless to say, I was exhausted in the morning when I rose to attend another meeting.

As if that was not enough, the return flight was delayed by another 3 hours, but this time no compensation was offered at all. Incidently, I missed a wedding of close friends daughter that evening in KL. The quality of service provided by an airline is core to its business. On this ocassion, MAS certainly failed to display an acceptable level of service. If its customers are really important to them, I would have expected them to take a more proactive approach to ensuring that all customers were well taken care of.

I recall a story from a business book that mentioned how an airline gave a baby a lifetime of free flights due to the delays in the flights the child and her parents suffered. Not only was the dissatisfaction diffused instantly, but by having one person always choosing their arline by preference, she will likely influence other to fly the same airlines in the future so that her flight is always free. Interesting approach?

Are we standing firm with our consumer rights?

I am a strong supporter of consumer rights, and I feel very dissapointment if any business or authority is allowed to take advantage of people without facing determined consequences. I have on mnay ocassions written in to organisations that have ignored my rights, and those among them that truly put the customer atthe forefront have responded well.

But what about authorities that ignore your rights. In this case I am speaking about Singapore and their Land Transport Authority. I find it rather odd that all vehicles from overseas (basically, that means from Malaysia) entering Singapore by road are not able to check the amount that they are required to pay on their way out, before the checkpoint. Without knowing this, the authority is basically expecting that you top up the autopass beyond what you might need to pay without knowing what that amount is. If you you are short of the required amount by even a cent, you are subjected to a fine in addition to paying the difference.

There are two counts of consumer rights that are violated here:
1) The right to accurate information, ie how much I owe the land authority before getting to the checkpoint. Imposing a fine when insufficient information is given to begin with is clearly unlawful
2) The right to pay only the amount required, and not be forced into paying more than necessary.

Sadly, Malaysians who visit Singapore only once in a while by car are really the losers. I wonder how many people have actually questioned this? I did and and what I got was two 3 Singaporean uniformed officers threatening me with "Are we looking for trouble?" at the checkpoint. Clearly I struck a sensitive note since the points I stated were valid. When I asked this young officer who threatened me to give me his name later, he claimed it was not necessary. So much for responsible and well manered Singaporean uniformed personnel!

Fire in the hole!

Yesterday morning started off just like any other day, with my wife and I rising for morning prayers. It was Monday, and we were both tired from had a funfilled weekend, so we thought of catching a few winks more before getting ready for work.

About 6.45 am, the sky appeared still very gloomy and it soon started to pour cats and dogs - a full scale thunderstorm that was about to make the morning very eventful. My car alarm went off several times before, so I had to go down and reset it. By this time it was 7.45 am. I happened to be on emergency standby duty for the manufacturing facility I work at, so I checked the pager for good measure. There were three pages and the message was horrifiying - the plant was on fire!! Apparently the lighting had sparked a fire in our storage facility!

Needless to say, I pulled on my jeans and raced to the emergency coordination room to handle the situation. This was not a simulation. It was the real deal. A real fire, with real people and assets at stake. By 7.30 am all the emergency team members were present, and two fire fighting teams were at site ready for action. By 8.00 am, the police and another 5 fire fighting teams were at site. We even had police helicopter take one of our staff up for ariel view of the situation.

The state secretary of defense also dropped by to asses the situation. I recall a moment when he looked around the emergency coordination room and asked if all the entire emergency response team (ERT) consisted of local people and seemed impressed when our managing director told him it was. He left after being satisfied that the situation was being well managed.

Thanks to the emergency preparedness of the site teams, and the collective effort of the authorities and staff, we managed to contain the fire and avert a major disaster. An all clear was called at 11.21 am after confirming that the fire was put out completely. Its comforting to know that the authorities did react quickly when required.

As always, there are many lessons to learn from such an event. I expect we will be running through a post mortem of the events that occured. Still, I am glad to have been part of a successful emergency response. Malaysia boleh!

November Rain

Its November and thunderstorms are regular where I stay. I have a quiet little place, not too far from the seaside, so the rumble of thunder and the lighting is pretty apparent, having not to compete with the brilliance and murmur of a big city.

I am at work now, just after having lunch with my wife. She made an excellent "Bee Hun" soup, which is just what you need if you want a light, but satisfying lunch. A moment ago Iwas presented with some gift vouchers, which both my wife and I had won in a quiz held at the company where we work. Actually, there were 3 quizzes that we both entered, and we won prizes in three of them! Alhamdulillah.

I guess we'll be doing some shopping this weekend. ;)

Chiang-Mai

My wife and I just returned from a holiday trip to Chiang-Mai, Thailand. It is only the 3rd trip we have had as a couple alone since we were married just over a year ago. It was really good to spend time with my wife away from our routine environment.

We found Chiang-Mai to be a wonderful place. The people are generally very friendly and the arts and crafts are beautiful. All can be purchased at a pretty reasonable price as well. For us the highlights of the trip was the visit to the Elephant Training School and the hill tribes village. We took a half hour ride on an elephant through a hill path in the Thai jungle - an amazing experience, well worth the 1000 Bath (for two). We also visited the Sunday night market on Walking Street, which was just a great place to take in the diverse culture, arts and crafts on offer in this region. The tour Guides from Standard Tours took good care of us and were happy to respond to our additional requests. It certainly changed my perception about joining guided tours.

The flight there via Air Asia was very good as well. It was our first flight via a budget airline, but we were impressed by the service provided. In a way we were lucky that we flew on the new A320, so the new interior and leather seats was very clean & comfortable. The flight was perfectly on time to and from Chiang Mai, and the luggage arrived undamaged at the baggage claim in good time. You can't ask for much more when you are travelling by air on a budget fare.

Anyway, we hadd a great weekend, but its back to the grindstone now.

BOW-TIE?

I am sure many of you wonder what I mean by "Life is a BOW-TIE". Well its really quite simple. Every event (the knot of a bow-tie) in life occurs as a result of a confluence of causes and situations (one wing of the bow-tie) . Some situations we can control, and others we just have to live with. After the event, we have to deal with the consequences (the other wing of the bow-tie). Again, some consequences we can handle easily, while others will take a lot out of us. In any situation, we can affect some control over the outcome only by anticipating and planning what we do, and by being aware of the risks we are willing to take.

Philosophical? Not really. Bow-ties have been used in the oil & gas industry for many years to analyse health, safety, security and environment (HSSE) hazards and consequences. I loved the bow-tie representation from the first time I learnt it,and in my opinion, the concept is applicable anywhere and to anyone.

Anyway, I have no intention of giving lessons on the subject.... not yet at least.

My first blog

I should be thanking my lovely wife, Safura, for forwarding a blog address, of a common friend. He had written about us getting married and some of our experiences. As I have been meaning to write a blog for some time now, I thought I'd kick it off right away. So here I am.

I guess expressing oneself by writing a blog is in a way a therapy - a way to speak ones mind in a "public" place without really facing or choosing the audience. Anyway, I'll add more to this blog as time passes. Who knows, it might even get interesting...