Fly Air Asia...Now everyone can check-in manually...

Surely the doomsday prophets have prophecied about the millenium bug and the chaos it would bring when all the internet connections suffered a global meltdown when the clock struck 12am in year 2000...well, i supposed no one's too interested about such a happening 10 years down the road...and to think that it happened 2 days sooner than before the clock strikes 12am to celebrate the year 2010...

Today i took an Air Asia flight from KK to Singapore...i was rushing to the airport as i was afraid i would be late for check-in...much to my amazement, as i entered the check-in area, i was greeted with a crowdful of passengers waiting for their turn to be checked-in...apparently there was a system shutdown that prevented computerized check-in...therefore, passengers had to be manually checked-in...of course, manual labour is hard to come by these days, resulting in extremely long and haphazard queues...

There i was, hungry without lunch...and finally i was checked-in...the lady at the counter said that today the flights would be free-seating but since i've bought my seat in advance, if anyone was seating at my place, i can request for the person to move...i was like, ok...so my flight was supposed to depart at 255pm but by the time we were ready to board, it was already 315pm plus... and they announced for the hot seat passengers and elderly and those with children to board first.. apparently, although i bought my seats, mine wasn't a hot seat...

So i waited with the others and eventually got up the plane...and as expected, my seat was already taken by someone else since if you didn't buy your seat, then you can seat anywhere you wished...so i told the flight attendant, i bought my seat but someone's sitting at my seat...and she told me, oh, i'm sorry but the flight today is free-seating becoz of the system shutdown...so i told her, ok, but i paid for my seat you know? and stormed off...then another flight attendant must have noticed i was a bit pissed so she came and said, ma'am, if you really want to sit at the seat you've bought then we'll arrange it for you..i was thinking, of course you had better arranged it...

So i got my seat and i think the other ppl who bought their seats requested for their rightful seats as well, which resulted in more delay as the flight attendants had to rearrange the seatings...well, they should have thought about this before they let the passengers board the plane...it's not fair for the passengers who have paid for their seats in advance to have to settle for other seats...the flight attendants should have allowed the passengers with advance seat request to board the flight first..together with the so-called hot seats passengers...then there wouldn't have been the problem of having to rearrange seatings on the plane...

I feel like i should complain about this...like write it to the newspapers or something...how can Air Asia be awared Best Low Cost Air Carrier of the Year or whatever award it is that they give out when their service is so embarrassingly incompetent? Well, there you go...fly Air Asia...Now everyone can check-in manually...Happy New Year anyway...