KUALA LUMPUR, August 24 – Firefly, Your Community Airline, announced today that it will increase its present turboprop fleet with the purchase of three additional ATR72-500s, two of which will be delivered in December 2010 and the third in January 2011. Entry into service will be 1 month from delivery date. This brings Firefly’s total turboprop fleet size to 10.
The additional aircraft will be used to strengthen Firefly’s current network footprint through increased frequency for high demand sectors and reinstatement of some Penang based routes that were previously suspended as a result of a network rationalization that was carried out in the 1st quarter of 2009 due to unfavourable economic conditions.

Additional frequencies:

SIN-SZB additional 1 flight daily resulting in 6 flights daily

SIN-IPH additional 3 flights (days 3,5,7) resulting in 2 flights daily

SZB-TGG additional 1 flight daily resulting in 3 flights daily

SZB-KBR additional 13 flights (2x on days 1,2,3,4,5,7 and 1x day 6) resulting in 7 flights daily

SZB-PEN additional 2 flights daily resulting in 10 flights daily

SZB-LGK additional 5 flights (days 1,2,3,4,6) resulting in 2 flights daily

PEN-MES additional 1 flight daily resulting in 2 flights daily

PEN-BTJ additional 4 flights (days 1,3,5,7) resulting in 1 flight daily

Routes reinstated:

PEN-KBR flights on days 1,3,5,7 resulting in 4 times a week

PEN-KUA flights on days 2,4,6 resulting in 3 times a week

PEN-TGG flights on days 2,4,6 resulting in 3 times a week

In a statement released today, Managing Director Dato’ Eddy Leong said that on top of the three aircraft, Firefly is negotiating for additional four ATR72-500s to be delivered in 2011/12 to fuel its expansion into more secondary routes.

Firefly received its first ATR72-500 aircraft on the 11 August 2008 and has since been operating with 7 brand new ATR72-500s serving 19 destinations from its hubs in Subang and Penang.  Firefly’s routes cover both business and leisure destinations in Malaysia, Singapore, Sumatera and Thailand.  It boasts a “One Destination Four Countries” point-to-point connectivity offering incredible values at low fares.

With the convenience of flying out of Subang, Firefly also offers incredible value with low fares, that includes 20kg check-in baggage allowance, assigned seating and in-flight refreshment.

Saturday, 13 Feb 2010, I arrived at Subang Airport at 5.30pm, immediately checked-in for FY 2068 flight to Kota Bharu.

 Flying time was rescheduled to 7.00pm. (Great that you informed passengers much earlier on the slight delay departing time).

 At that moment, I actually felt very excited to imagine that I will board in a small aircraft very soon and frankly, I also felt nervous!

I text my wife to share how excited I was when first time seeing Fireflyz through glass walls at the boarding area. I have also asked her to recite extra “doa” for my safe journey.

 After asking permission from the airport personnel, I took a few snaps of the cute aircraft.

 While flying, I could only remembered Shakira, your dedicated and sweet cabin crew who was on duty. She had been so helpful and accommodative throughout the journey.

Fresh juices with a slice of cake (packed in red angpow packets) made my journey more fascinating. I started falling in love with Fireflyz service. “Kecil-kecil cili padi”!

The 1-hour 5-mins journey had become 55 mins! I smiled. I told almost all my friends in Kota Bharu that I love Fireflyz. To summarize, it was simple, fast and very professional.

Monday 15 Feb 2010, I was in FY 2069 flying back to Subang, very punctual departure time! And again, your sweet Shakira was on duty. This time she served muffins.

Delicious. What more can I say to express my happiness during my “first date” with Fireflyz? Well…now I am a fan of Fireflyz in the Facebook! Check me out.

Join our Facebook now at http://www.facebook.com/Firefly for more activities!

Our next experience came from Prakash of Johor Bahru. He tells us his first experience with Firefly. Bad or good comments? Well, you will have to read it!

My colleagues have been flying Firefly almost exclusively for the past 2 years. So often I have heard of passengers complaining about the flight delays, but I consider myself lucky because I didn’t experience any delay on any of my flights I previously travelled. That luck evaded me during my most recent date with the airline’s flight FY 2148 from JB to Subang and to tell you frankly, that was the 1st time i took the Firefly aircraft.

Many have told me about the decline in Firefly service. They said they are not like they used to be at the first time when they launched their service mid 2007. I hate to believe that they are correct. I sincerely hope they are wrong.

The 1st hurdle came by as I received 6 text messages informing me that my flight have been delayed by 2 hours. Well, i felt that it was ‘okay’ for me as this was my 1st experience of getting flight delays and I eventually arrived at Sultan Ismail International airport for my check in at the re-timed session.

As everything went on smooth, there was another setback as the flight have been delayed by another 30 minutes which by this time all the passengers who were all waiting to board the aircraft at the boarding bay stranded without any prior notice or announcement over the Airport PA system that announced about the delay.

Well, what I could witness was, there were many passengers who were unhappy and many of them approached the information counter for further explanations and what they get was a no vail answer. While I was walking around the boarding bay, there was a guy by the name of Raymond who approached me and we started to chat about the flight delay and eventually ended up being a new friend on board.

Through his conversation at that time, he told me this was the second time in a row that he faced this flight delay without prior notice and he was getting fed up with such services. His 1st flight was bound to Kuala Terengganu via Subang.

As the conversation was getting lengthy, we talked about many topics which I believe could be an improvement for Firefly.

1. Firefly should take advantage of the access to Subang International Airport which would be an easier an convenient route to many of the passengers staying in Selangor and KL district as I believe all the other aircrafts are flying to KLIA or LCCT which is quite far from the main sub-urban areas. (Except Berjaya Air i guess). So I believe the flight delays, cancellations and poor service is not recommendable.

2. If there is any flight delays exceeding 2 or 3 hours, passengers would be entitled to cash vouchers which they can use to purchase the next Firefly ticket. In this way, I believe the passengers would be given another chance to judge the credibility and improvements that out to be virtues by Firefly. (Passengers don’t lose hope on the Firefly services)

3. Announcement over the Airport PA system if there are any flight delays and appointing a crew or representatives over at the boarding bay. (This to improve the communication service.)

Budget airlines may be good in terms of value for the tourists but for business people it is different. If a company is a prestigious one and is prospering why should it make its productive and hardworking executives travel cattle class or budget airlines? If I am working as an executive for a big and renowned company and it makes me fly budget or economy, I will switch allegiance. My reason for switching to another establishment is why work for a stingy company?

So you see people will still fly business and first class especially now when the recession is almost over and companies are reporting brisk businesses and turning in profits.
In this light,airlines like Firefly need to improve their services and compete with the best as i believe many of the Firefly staffs have the experience working with a world class airlines such as MAS. So, I hope that it would bring up some bright ideas to establish Firefly as the best community airline as mentioned!

Last but not least, I would like to say some great moments travelling up the new ATR72-500 and their cabin crew services. This is really great experience as the plane look awesome and great.

I believe firefly can make wonders with this aircraft as this is an unique model here as many of the other airlines are using Airbus and Boeing up their sleeves. So, let Firefly go in with a bang to get the large community to fly frequently with them. Well, the cabin crew services was a great one and didn’t had any hiccups along the way as their broad smiles and delicate service was a natural cool down for many of the passengers.

Well, this was what I could think about at this moment and if there is any improvements or comments, would post it up soon.

Regards,
Your concerned community
Prakash