How did Air Asia make money when their air fare is RM 0?

Being a poor man myself, I constantly have to be satisfied when I could fly with Air Asia. Although I never travel on air much but I have many unsatisfied incident with Air Asia. Maybe I have tough luck but really I did. Some unbelievable moments with Air Asia.

The most recent tragedy with Air Asia is during my honeymoon to Macau. My wife and I was so looking forward to this trip but things just have to happen. For this trip, we booked 1 year ago and we booked a 10am ticket. When we book this ticket, we thought we have ample time to prepare and need not travel too early in the morning but some wise guy from Air Asia reschedule our flight to 8am.

NOW, Back to the topic, how do they make money? Simple if no one fill up their seats, they will fill it up themselves by rescheduling trips. All they have to do is just combining 2 trips to 1 trip. This way they save the expenses of one trip and at the same time fill up their seats. The result is, the seats in my flight are filled up. Really! I have pictures to prove them

So now, we started flying and the flight attendants started shouting “food and drinks for purchase”. Apparently most passengers ignored them. Not many people bought lunch that trip. I think they will have the same thinking like me because we are expected to land at 12pm. By the time we get out of the airport, it will be about 1pm. Just the right time for lunch don’t you think? Besides, tasting the local food in Macau will be much better than taking the same old Pak Nasir Nasi Lemak right?

Well things just have to happen. Soon there is an announcement from the captain saying that we have problem landing due to the visibility of the airport is very low. So AK52 have no choice but to head to Guangzhou China to refuel the plane and wait for an opportunity to land. Well I am disappointed but for safety sake its ok.

Now back to the question again how did Air Asia make money when no one buys their food? Simple, keep your passengers stranded in the plane during lunch time and make them hungry. This way you will surely be able to sell more food. Well that’s what they did!

At 1pm we landed on Guangzhou. I thought we will be going to the waiting room to wait for news but NO! they kept us on the plane! So I asked the flight attendant to sell me lunch since my wife and I are hungry. Acting very reluctant, I asked him several times until another air attendant came and said yes. So I ordered 2 Pak Nasir Nasi Lemak, one for me and the other for my wife. Thinking that they will let us wait at the airport, I did not order any drinks.

After that, every Tom, Dick and Harry came rushing down to buy lunch. The food sold like hot cakes and everything sold out. They even came to the stage where they do not have sufficient hot water to sell instant noodles! I am sure no one will believe but that is the fact.

Now, if you want to make money, you have to cut costs right? So what happen next is the airplane forbids using the loo due to water level is too low! So that is a good way to save cost don’t you think? Then, the captain down the aisle and head to the loo! Hey the toilet flush his pee the same way. What about the water level thingy? Is it a bluff?

Funny note: the aunty sitting behind me wanted to go to the loo but the attendant forbid them. When the captain used the loo, they allow. So the aunty said loudly “ we cannot use the loo but if you pee standing, you can use the loo” lol!

So what other ways can you Air Asia save costs? This must be one of the ways that no other airlines will think of. A very simple way but can save lots of money. Everyone agrees that the highest cost in any organization is their human resource. Air Asia saves money by hiring low quality employees.

All they have to do is just to hire those people rejected by other airlines. That is how you end up having some air stewardess who are short, ugly, too fat to squeeze through the aisle, no proper manners, not elegant, messy hair with rainbow colours and worst of all, cant speak proper English.

Since I was still an infant, my mom always says that pilots have the best eyesight. Those with spectacles are not allowed to be a pilot. She told me if I want to fly a plane, keep my distance from the TV. In this trip I had a shock of my life when I see the uncle pilot is an old man with glasses! What they even hire rejected pilots to save costs?

Dude my life is in the hands of a four eyed pilot. No wonder he said the visibility of the airport is bad. I wonder if the fog is actually only on his glasses! Hahaha…

Finally, I reached Macau at about 3pm.

There was again another trip I encounter with Air Asia. I was on a company trip to Sarawak to assist my Senior Manager on some tasks. After he is done in Sabah, he left me with the manager there and flew back. I followed the manager to Sarawak and after we are done there I am supposed to fly back alone.

Now, what have this got to do with my topic of the day? Well is about costing of course! So now I would like to share how to save some expenses on airlines again. All you have to do is let damaged air-conditioner remain damaged.

This way, the airlines can save money for repair and at the same time when its down, you might as well shut down to save energy! Yup I will have to be in a sauna for an hour. Although many passengers make noise about this but they don’t seem to care. We even have an infant on the plane! All the flight attendants did was to tell use that “We have some proble with the compressor, don’t worry it will be cooler when we are flying”

Passengers started shouting too and a boycott begin. One uncle shouted “Stop the plane! Don’t fly unless the air cond is working! Don’t treat us like dogs, We paind for our tickets”. Due to the incident, the flight was delayed for an hour to sort out the bags of the passengers who are unwilling to travel on the plane. Boy what a show that was. lol

Now if there are any airlines who read my blog, I am sure you know now how to earn money like Uncle Tony...