COMMERCIAL air travel in consumerism's golden age is so routine in work and leisure that it's built into the annual corporate and personal budget.
The numbers speak: Malaysia hit 20.25 million passengers annually, including foreign carrier and international flights.
Post–Covid pandemic, Malaysia's July passenger traffic reached a record 12.4 million passengers.
These spectacular numbers originate from two fronts: Malaysia piggy-backs on 100,000 daily flights worldwide transporting six million passengers and leverages its reputation for world-class cabin crew, low labour costs, technical skills and a regional hub for robust flyers' growth.
But here's the downside: in spite of the advantages, domestic airlines struggle to keep up with demand. A certain airline gets bogged down by infuriating flight delays and cancellations, stemming from flight reduction and alarming technical problems forcing a series of emergency landings.
This won't do. Transport Minister Anthony Loke immediately announced urgent measures to bolster passenger confidence: full compensation for delays of five hours or more that includes hotel, transport, meals, phone calls and Internet access.
It's fine to subject airlines to tighter auditing and accountability, but does it need 30 days for refunds in an era of the clickable online banking app? The new rules have generated a backlash: distressed passengers demanded penalties against airlines, not just refunds, even for one-hour delays.
Refunds should add 50 per cent of the ticket value to soften complications from fresh but erratic bookings. To circumvent penalties, airlines will scramble for legal loopholes, but here's one they can't avert: the air travel boom hasn't brightened the financial outlook.
Airlines are reeling from inflated costs, overcapacity, delays in new aircraft deliveries, costlier jet fuel, weak aircraft maintenance and high employee turnover. There's a plus side though. Despite the adversity, people still want to fly, provided airlines conscientiously overcome the disreputable part of their services.
Loopholes are irrelevant if airlines live up to their core strategies of service segmentation, passenger targeting and brand value positioning. Service segmentation assures premium safety, highest satisfaction and competitive costs.
Passenger targeting focuses on corporate, businesses and business travellers between 30 and 49, the golden category of loyal frequent flyers willing to pay for premiums and extras. Airlines top off with brand value positioning with safety as a top priority. Then there's oversupply on certain routes that causes fare dumping and bloated operating expenses.
These problems, unless dealt with effectively, will perpetuate more delays, cancellations and rescheduling, with the cascading effect being profitless ticket prices and spiraling revenue.