The last time I boarded AirAsia XL promo from Hangzhou to Kuala Lumpur was January last year when we visited my parents-in-law in Malaysia.

With 5 flights a week, AirAsia is the first airline in the Southeast Asia region to provide a non-stop service flight to Hangzhou. They now fly to Australia, Uk, India and very soon to Japan. I was on a 737 (economy class) and it must have been the tightest seat pitch I have ever experienced!

This time, the new aircraft was equipped with in-flight entertainment systems in all seats. This include touch-screen system with lots of entertainment content as well as cool applications, including games, interactive moving map, shopping and in-seat chatting system.

Chatting is free, but you need a small fee to access other entertainment services.

An USB port is also available at each seat for games controllers, or power charging your personal electronic devices. It is said that AirAsia will be the first airline in Asia to deploy OnAir mobile communications services. This will enable passengers to use their mobile phones and BlackBerry-type devices to send and receive SMS messages, emails, and to make and receive mobile phone calls in flight.

The flight back last week was an 5 hour evening flight. I only manage to get an hour nap

I actually don’t prefer AirAsia for long haul.

AirAsia always portrayed itself as having a better, friendlier and prettier cabin crew than other 5 star airlines. But that’s not what I see from Kuala Lumpur to Hangzhou flight. They are inattentive and despite the call light being on for 20 mins, no crew came to attend to you.

The last time I traveled a midnight flight with AirAsia X, there are times when they off the lights for passengers to sleep. All of a suddent, I was awaken by the noisy cabin crews from the back of the curtain beside the emergency exit. They chit-chat and giggled so LOUD that someone had to come up and ask them to lower their voice.

This time, the same flight, same cabin crew… chit chat, chit chat…CHIT CHAT…. so LOUD.  And the other thing is, there’s only 1 Chinese-speaking crew on board. I can heard some crews say “Sorry, I don’t speak Chinese!“, walk away and ignore the Chinese passengers, leaving them with lots of question marks. There was one incident that really surprised me. When the passengers were boarding the air craft and looking for their seats, an air steward was blocking the path of a little chinese girl. She politely said “Excuse me” but the air steward gave her a glance and ignored her. Again she politely asked him to let her through but there was no response. It wasn’t until I stared at him that he let her pass. Does this award winning Airline train their crew this way?

Thank God that I never witness any behaviour like the one below despite the service at AirAsia X.

The coolest cabin crew from one of the airline in China.

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9:10 pm

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