Batik Air told to apologise to passengers by Malaysian minister. But is it too little too late?

Malaysian transport minister, Anthony loke has asked Batik Air Malaysia to apologise to its passengers for allegedly leaving them stranded in the airport for a flight that was delayed for about seven hours overnight at KLIA.  This was brought to minister Loke’s attention via Twitter, where a passenger by the name posted about the snafu on his Twitter page. In his tweet, he tagged Malindo Air (@malindoair) that is now called Batik Air. He directly referred to Loke to take action against the matter. The tweets also indicated that the airline staff had treated them poorly and not forewarned them about the delay.

The video that Jailan posted on his social media has now amassed more than 1 million views and around 1.3k likes on Twitter. The caption of the video stated that the flight had been delayed from 11am to 6pm and the passengers were not provided with any amenities to make their stay at the airport a more comfortable one.

Since the incident, Batik Air has also apologised to the consumer. The airline compensated the consumer with 100 Ringgit, and the letter pointed out that the airline knew it had run into a problem from 12.30pm, but did not take the initiative to inform its passengers. MARKETING-INTERACTIVE reached out to Batik Air for a statement.

Batik Air Malaysia, was previously known as Malindo Air, with a rebranding done in 2017 to give the airline a better position in the Lion Air Group. In Malaysia the brand has several other established competitors within the domestic market to vie against - the biggest being AirAsia. As such having a credible brand experience and positive recognition is vital to the awareness of the brand.

Former chief strategist at Be Strategic, Ashvin Anamalai said that flight delays are a typical part of the travelling experience that most travellers are bound to face at some point, but the lack of customer service is the focal point of the issue at hand. "As the brand scrambles to solve the often reoccurring problems, many airlines fail to communicate adequately with consumers during flight delays. In doing so, they reveal that their operations are much more important than their customers," he added.

Regarding Loke's engagement in the issue, he said that the minister's action definitely brought attention to the brand as he is a person of influence who carries far more credibility and impact than a common person. However, "Tarnished reputations aren't as important as their responses, because brand credibility doesn't just rebuild itself; as people may forgive and forget the incident but they wont forget how you conducted yourself in the process."

When it comes to remedying the situation, David Lian, managing director of Asia, growth and innovation said right now its about how the airline decides to react to the apology request. "Consumers want to be treated fairly, and the brand’s credibility will be much more affected by how it resolves their customers concerns with care, sincerity and real action," he said.

In 2019, Batik air faced a major data leak of its passengers. A database dump made available on 3 September was published online and contained email addresses, dates of birth, physical addresses, passport numbers, and phone numbers claimed to be breached in 2019. In September 2019, Batik Air, then operating as Malindo Air, confirmed that the data breach had been contained. It explained that two former employees of its eCommerce services provider, GoQuo in their development centre in India had improperly accessed and stole customers' personal data. The airline also reported the matter to Malaysian and Indian police.

Additionally, AirAsia received the highest number of complaints in the first half of the year in 2022 (42.1%), followed by Malaysia Airlines (40.7%) and Batik Air (7.9%). For every million passengers carried, Malaysia Airlines recorded the highest number of registered complaints with 199 complaints, MAVCOM said, followed by Batik Air with 167 complaints and AirAsia with 95 complaints. Flight rescheduling, flight cancellations, and online booking collectively contributed to 46.1% (577) of total complaints filed. Other complaints included refunds (7.9%), frequent flyer programmes (7.6%), and mishandled baggage (7.3%).

In October 2022, airasia came under fire for poor customer service when a paraplegic passenger had to crawl across the cabin to get to his wheelchair when the plane landed at Changi Airport. Citing a TikTok video which has since been deleted, media outlets reported that the man was struggling to crawl along the aisle. He was also clutching a seat handle for support. This is another example of why frontline staff are a crucial aspect of the customer's experience when it comes to the service industry. With travel picking up, airlines are among the companies that need to once again win the hearts of consumers with their hospitality and service. 

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