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