M’sian Family Claimed They Were Kicked Off Overbooked AirAsia Flight Like They Were Criminals

For many, flying can be a frightful experience. 

After all, you’re so high up in the air, entrusting your life in a pilot’s hands. 

A Malaysian woman also has the same sentiments, but the reason is different from what you’d think. 

Malaysian Family Kicked Off Overbooked AirAsia flight

Susan Yong and her family were kicked off their overbooked flight to Thailand, and she has since taken to Facebook to air her frustration. 

Originally, they were supposed to fly from Kuala Lumpur to Chiang Mai on 19 November but were told their flight was overbooked during check-in. As such, they could not board the plane. 

After speaking to the AirAsia counter staff for a while, Yong and her family were informed that they could take a later flight to the same destination. They were then given their boarding passes.

However, while the others in the group got legitimate boarding passes, Yong and her husband received handwritten boarding passes, which they did not realise until it was too late.

As they boarded the plane, an aggressive male staff member came up to them and told them to leave. He disputed the handwritten boarding passes by telling them that since they had no ticket, they could not fly. 

They were unwilling to leave because the seniors travelling with them were already on the plane. 

The staff then called in security personnel to deal with them. Without any sort of discussion on compensation and accommodation, the staff only focused on getting them off the plane, saying that the discussions could be held outside. 

As the situation became tenser, Yong informed her elderly family members to prepare to leave the plane. 

“Moments later, about six or seven security personnel appeared, and they kicked us off the plane as if we were criminals,” she recounted.

Yong’s post featured two videos showing the family being forcefully moved out of the plane. 

After the hullabaloo, Yong said the airline offered them each US$100 (S$137) credit into their AirAsia account as a compensation. She viewed it as an insincere gesture and rejected the offer.

According to her, they were offered a one-night stay at a hotel, but the stay was also dissatisfactory. 

Ultimately, they took a 12.45 pm flight to Chiang Mai the next day. 

Translated Text of the Ordeal

Below is the translated text of her entire ordeal:

My family and I are here to apologize to those who took the same flight from KL to Chiang Mai on that day (19-11-2022) 🙏🏻, because our incident caused the flight to be delayed for an hour🙏🏻

Our tickets were booked in April of this year.

When we checked in at the counter on 19/11/2022, the lady at the counter let us know that the plane was overbooked, so she couldn’t help us with it, so she arranged for us to go to another counter to help us arrange it. When we arrived at the service counter, the lady at the counter let us know that the tickets in the plane were oversold. The lady then asked if we could take the next day’s flight.  We then asked about the hotels and cars we had already booked. The lady at the counter turned around and asked another staff member inside, and said that she could arrange our flight for 8 o’clock tonight…

 Me: Will I reach Chiang Mai tonight?

 Counter lady: You ​​will reach Thailand tonight.

 Me: Is that reaching Chiang Mai tonight?

 Counter lady: You will reach Thailand tonight.

 Me: Where is this in Thailand?

 Counter lady: You ​​will reach Bangkok.

 Me: But the hotel and car we booked are in Chiang Mai, how should we deal with this?

 Counter lady: Arrive in Bangkok tonight and fly to Chiang Mai at 7:00 tomorrow morning.

Me: Does this solve my problem?  If KL flies to Chiang Mai tomorrow, what should I do with my hotel and car tonight?

The counter lady turned around and asked the staff behind…

Miss at the counter: Yes, the arrangement has arrived. Then you check in your luggage now, and we will arrange for the staff to take you to the plane later.

(It’s already boarding time. Fortunately, we arrived three hours earlier. I tried to check in on the mobile app in advance. At that time, I found that it was not very smooth, and there was an error. I thought of arranging another machine to check in, but I don’t know. For some reason, it was not possible, so I was assigned to the counter. Since there was only two staff at the counter, and there were many people, it wasted a lot of time. There was only one staff member at the service counter, so I waited for a long time, and there was almost no time left when I arrived an hour away)

(The tickets for my husband and I were written by hand, and no one explained it to us. They just said that seats would be arranged later. At first, we didn’t notice that our tickets were written by hand. Two staff members took us in along the way.  Checkpoints, the checkpoint personnel confirmed with them that we had a seat and that we could fly today before entering the country, so we boarded the plane smoothly)

After boarding the plane, my husband and I stood in front of the flight attendant and waited for the seat arrangement. The flight attendant checked the list and found that my husband and I were on the no-show list. We didn’t know why.  I also chatted with the flight attendant while waiting, and her attitude was very good. She told us that she would arrange a seat for us after a while…

Suddenly, a male staff member walked in from a distance and asked us to leave the plane with a very bad attitude… I was shocked…

Male Staff: You don’t have a ticket, please get off the plane now, you can’t be here.

My husband: This is the ticket you gave us. You let us get on the plane. Now, you have this sort of attitude when you tell us to leave the plane. Could you please explain why?

Male Staff: Don’t you know?  Your air tickets are not counted, we have explained this to you clearly, please leave immediately.

My husband: Wait a minute, no one explained to us from the beginning to the end, and no one told us that the air ticket does not count, I hope you can explain it clearly to us…

Male staff member: As we have said, please leave immediately and talk outside.

My husband: If I leave here, what about my mother, father-in-law, and mother-in-law that are sitting inside the plane?  We are on a trip, we brought them here, and we can’t ignore and leave them. Please let me know how to deal with it.

Male staff member: Don’t talk so much. You don’t have a plane ticket, please leave immediately, or I will call security…

My husband: Please ask your supervisor or someone who can communicate and explain here to give me an explanation here.

 Male Staff: I’m going to ask for security now…

(At this time, I found that the attitude of the staff was not very good, and there was deception, so I picked up my mobile phone to prepare evidence. In fact, I was very scared, and worried about what would happen to my parents and mother-in-law if I were kicked off the plane)

When the security guards came, they still tried to trick us into getting out of the plane and talking again. After the security guards arrived, they entered the cockpit and came out after a while. They didn’t say anything about solving our problems, and they didn’t want to listen to us. They didn’t say anything about compensation.  I didn’t know how the elders on the plane would deal with it. In short, they just wanted to trick us into getting out of the plane first… What we were worried about is the elders we brought with us…

I think the situation is not good, they didn’t want to listen to us, and they didn’t want to solve how to arrange the three elders on the plane. I quickly notified the elders and got ready to go out. If I didn’t notify them, we would get off the plane while they would fly, making it so much more troublesome later on.

Moments later, about six or seven security personnel appeared, and they kicked us off the plane as if we were criminals… Their attitude was really bad, I really felt horrible… Fortunately, the elders got off the plane.  Yeah, I was actually freaked out too…

After getting off the plane, I couldn’t speak and burst into tears when I spoke, I don’t understand why…

They arranged for my husband to go through the formalities with them, arrange to take the luggage out of the plane, where to pick up the luggage, and then said to arrange for us on the plane tomorrow, the accommodation and dinner for the night and the breakfast for the next day… The accommodation is so bad, I won’t mention it, you can look back at my previous post…

We also called the police afterwards…

I also received an email from them on the same day, saying that they would compensate each of us USD100 into our personal credit account, and there was still a deadline to provide our AA account ID. I forgot how many days the deadline was. My parents don’t even have an AA account, so I rejected their gesture.

The point is, do I still want to take your plane?  Do you really have a sincere apology?  I still feel that I should forget about the incident if I can overcome it, continue to do things like this, and continue to let many people encounter such encounters.

My mood was seriously affected, and the elders also said that the flying had affected everything… The journey was shortened, and the entire itinerary was affected.

 If there is a change in flight time, we can make better arrangements…

When checking in, communicate directly first, and directly make compensation for the impact on our itinerary, is it not the case?

Maybe they don’t want to pay compensation at all, it’s normal to oversell like this. If they think they can be cheated, they will cheat, and the evil will be over…

 At that time, because of your irresponsible mistakes, the passengers on the same plane were delayed for an hour because of this incident. Have you ever thought about whether they should also be compensated?

 #At that time, I was really frightened

 #The second video was sent to me by a stranger on the same plane

 #Thank you for the information and concern of strangers on the same plane

 #Thanks for the concern of the stranger who met the same plane in Chiang Mai and the airport

 #I could have travelled happily with my family

 #Can you understand our mood

After I come back, I will take the time to read some complaint websites sent to me by netizens, and see how I can deal with them. Thank you very much.

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Featured Image: Susan Yong / Facebook