Day 23 – Mistakes in Malaysia
Today was the travel day, out of Phuket and in to Kuala
Lumpur. I’ve done many of these diaries so far, all in similar style. Well,
this time I am changing up. I have three things to rant about from my
experiences today, and so I’ll just cover them:
1.) Phuket International Airport
Phuket is not some small city, it is not SIem Reap, or even
Dalat. It is probably the 2nd most famous and most visited place in
Thailand. At Phuket, the ‘international’ in the airport isn’t merely for
effect, as they have flights to other countries, including to Europe, and when
I say Europe I mean places like Moscow and Helsinki (along with London, Paris
and the usual). This is a town that needs an airport capable of handling the
traffic that such a highly visited destination incurs. Phuket International
doesn’t come close.
Phuket Airport isn’t new or fancy, having none of the high
glass façades present at airports throughout Asia. That itself isn’t great, but
I can’t knock it too much. HCMC’s Domestic Airport wasn’t too great either –
but again, that is their domestic airport. Bangkok’s old airport that is used
by budget airlines now isn’t great, but again, Bangkok realized this and built
a spanking new airport with all of the things any world class airport should
have. Phuket just doesn’t measure up. Heck, even Dalat Airport, a place with 9
flights a day coming and taking off, has large glass walls. But this isn’t the
worst part of Phuket airport. No, that would be the ridiculous crowds sprawled
throughout the departure area. The departure area itself is a mess, a hodge-podge
of lines to enter planes clashing with lines to buy food, all trying to weave
their way about the seemingly randomly placed seating areas. It is clear that
the airport wasn’t built to handle this much traffic, but Phuket has been a
heavy resort and tourist destination for some time now.
I can’t really think of any airport to compare Phuket’s to
that I have been to recently. Possibly Bangalore’s old airport, but that was
much smaller and rarely as crowded as this was. They did seem to be starting a
project to expand it, but starting means that the foundation hasn’t been
poured, and the proposed expansion is probably enough for 3 extra gates. Not
all airports need to be as fancy as Bangkok’s new airport, but it should match
at least the airport in Phnom Penh, because there might not be as much traffic,
but there is as much money, and probably more international visitors. The
airport is nicely situated on the water, but not so nicely situated about 30
minutes away, with below average traffic, from Phuket’s Old Town, and a good 45
minutes away from Patong/Karon Beach, making it the 2nd most
randomly placed airport I’ve been to (the worst was Dalat, where the airport
was 30 km away from the city, despite there being little in between the two).
Phuket’s airport is a mess, a big surprise compared to the rest of Phuket.
2.) Air Asia
I realize Air Asia is a budget airline. I get that. I also
realize that in Asia (or maybe anywhere that isn’t the USA) the ‘budget’ part
of budget airline is taken quite literally. But Air Asia and their operations
in Kuala Lumpur are going overboard, throwing the budget in our face. Somehow,
Air Asia won Skytrax’s award for Best Budget Airline. There is not one thing I
would recommend apart from the price of their tickets. And if this is the
‘best’ I wonder what the other ones in Asia are like.
The flights aren’t the problem, really, because I’m used to
not getting food on a domestic flight. Unlike US carriers, the price of the
food for purchase is actually reasonable – which is strange, given that barely
anyone buys any. The difference with Air Asia is they don’t even give drinks
for free, not even water. Again, water isn’t expensive, but even on airlines in
the US, airlines that are in such bad financial shape they probably lost millions
since you began reading this piece, give their customers water, if not also a
bag of assorted nuts. AirAsia doesn’t give you a thing, not even a moist
toilette. I am very interested to see if this changes at all on our flight from
Kuala Lumpur to Bangalore, as that flight is relatively long (3 hours), but
from the rest of my experience, I am not counting on it.
My other in-air-experience gripe I have isn’t as big, but
still something that ticks me off. Their flights make you turn off your
electronic equipment as far before actual landing as any airline I’ve been on.
Of course, there are myriad ways around those instructions, but still it is
annoying to have to straighten your chairs, secure your tray tables and turn
off your phones (and because of the small planes, only source of A/V
entertainment) 20 minutes before you land on what was only a 1.5 hour flight.
Still, these problems weren’t as bad as what I found out
when I landed in KL. At the Kuala Lumpur airport, all the Low-Cost Carriers
have their operations based in the ‘Low-Cost Carrier Terminal’ (LCCT). Since
Air Asia represents a good 90% of low-cost operations at Kuala Lumpur
International Airport (KLIA), this is in reality an Air Asia terminal. Now, it
is hard to call this a terminal considering we live in the year 2013. There are
no jet-bridges (the real term). Fine. There are also no buses that take you
from your plane to the terminal. Fine, because the terminal is close by. The
problem comes in where the International Arrivals Hall is in one corner of the
terminal, and our plane happened to be parked in a stall on the opposite side,
so everyone on the plane had to endure a walk of about 1 km. Again, that’s ok.
There are many terminals where you have to walk one km to reach the
International Arrivals Hall. The problem here was the walk had to take place
outdoors. I literally have never seen something this absurd.
So, after the one km walk outside, we finally reached the
hall, and the terminal is essentially housed under one big warehouse. It is
clear that this is done solely for cost-cutting purposes. I get the fact that
the fees to park planes at jet-bridges are a lot, but there are three options
I’ve seen low-cost carriers use to combat this problem. The first isn’t
exclusively used by low-cost carriers, but you can just not park your planes at
jet-bridges and have people go to the terminal on buses. Of course, the more
conventional route is to do the two-pronged approach that has worked so well
for Southwest/JetBlue in the US: Generally try to use secondary airports
(Chicago’s Midway instead of O’Hare, or Houston’s Hobby instead of George Bush
Intercontinental, to name two), and turn your plane around as fast as possible.
Air Asia follows this approach somewhat, with absurd turn-around times and
often choosing secondary airports like in Bangkok. But, in KL, which is their
main hub, they went for approach #4: build a crappy, makeshift ‘terminal’ where
you can operate and shift a lot of the work to your clients. The worst part of
this whole thing was while I was walking in the heat to the International
Arrivals Hall, the gleaming KLIA main terminal is mocking me in the distance.
I didn’t want to compare Phuket’s airport to Bangalore, but
the only thing that the LCCT reminded me of is Bangalore’s old airport, a tiny
Costco sized building in the heart of the city. This was similar, except it
wasn’t in the heart of Bangalore, but tucked away in some hamlet in one corner
of an airport that happens to cover more ground than all but one in the world
(the largest, in the physical sense, airport is Jeddah’s). I realize that this
isn’t officially the Air Asia terminal, but I guarantee you it didn’t exist
until Air Asia did, and I guarantee you if Air Asia closed up shop tomorrow,
the terminal would follow suit. It isn’t to the level of embarrassment that the
Delta terminals are to JFK, but at least everyone accepts that the Delta
terminals are decrepit. Here, instead of pointing out the idiocy of making
people that just flew your plane, on a flight where you provided them with zero
nourishment for free, walk half a mile in the open air.
3.) The perils of luggage
OK, this last one isn’t a rant, and it is completely my
fault. It actually highlights that Air Asia isn’t a total cost-cutting sham
operation, but also is something that got me upset. A quick background before I
begin: my suitcase handle broke in HCMC, so my Mom decided to come without a
suitcase from Bangalore, and buy me a new suitcase to take back in Bangkok. Of
course, seeing as the prices were good, and the suitcase I had was falling
apart in other areas because of the strain from carrying it instead of rolling
it, she junked that suitcase and bought another one. This is definitely a good
thing, but these suitcases aren’t like any I’ve ever used, so I was a little
nervous when retrieving them for the first time from the Baggage Claim. I was
so nervous I did something I rarely do: check the luggage tag to make sure the
suitcase is mine. Of course, since I was traveling Air Asia, where nothing is
done according to protocol, they don’t have the last name on the luggage tag,
just a number.
Anyway, I was able to successfully retrieve the right piece
of luggage in Phuket. Fastforward four days to baggage claim in that shanty
village in the LCCT. Luckily, for me, our two bags come quickly, right after
each other. This isn’t strange, since often bags are grouped together. So, we
go on our way. Now, fastforward to an hour later, when we are unloading the cab
at our hotel, and my mom claims that she doesn’t recognize a green tie that was
tied around the handle. She then says that the suitcase isn’t ours. I then
realize this too. Of course, I had failed to check the luggage tag, because,
well, who the fuck does? Still, these two suitcases could not have been any
more similar. The suitcase is black, but the upper half (the other side of the
zipper) is red, a strange combination that I thought would be pretty unique. The
suitcase I picked up had a pink lock. Of course, my Mom uses a pink lock. So
even that limits the suitcases (of course, she tells me that she didn’t lock
the suitcases this time). The brand of suitcase we bought was Apology, this one
was Apolong. Literally, if the two suitcases were compared, it would be like
that scene in any procedural that says they are 95% likely to be the same. But
they weren’t.
So, my mom flipped, as she had a right to, because now we
had to go back to the airport, and our suitcase was unlocked sitting in that
hell-hole of a building. In the end, we were able to get the suitcase back, but
even that was an adventure, as we first went to an Air Asia office because it
happened to be two minutes away from the hotel. There, the lady behind the desk
told us she can’t call Air Asia at the airport because the airport doesn’t have
a phone. She kept repeating that it was a ‘budget airline, madam’ and that
there was no phone. I wanted to tell her that if it was a budget airline to the
extent she wants us to believe, she wouldn’t have a job, but then again, with
that terminal there might not be a
phone.
In the end, I learned a valuable lesson: never fly into
Kuala Lumpur on Air Asia, and always check the luggage tag, or next time you
buy a new suitcase, get one that is half pink and half white, and attach two
locks.
