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?