[Cloud-9]

We are stranded at KUL en route to MEL as our MH flight has ‘technical difficulties’.

The lounge staff advise the delay will be at least 6 hours. Any idea if we are entitled to any compensation and, if so, how to go about claiming it?

MH ground staff less than helpful.

[AMcWhirter]

I sympathise but MH’s London passengers recently suffered a delay of around 28 hours when their KUL-bound A380 flight encountered technical issues.

MH’s A380 flight on Monday morning, which should have departed LHR at 10.25hrs, eventually took-off on Tuesday afternoon (yesterday) at 14.54hrs.

As far as I know there is nothing equivalent to EU261 in Malaysia.

[capetonianm]

If your journey started in the EU and the KUL MEL forms part of the same journey you are covered under 261/2004.

If it’s a standalone, then no. Good luck.

[AMcWhirter]

That’s a good point, capetonian. But I would imagine that EU261 would apply only if the passenger was travelling with a through ticket.

[JKL]

MAVCOM (Malaysian Aviation Commission) sets out consumer rights for travellers in Malaysia – https://www.mavcom.my/en/consumer/flight-delays-cancellations/

[Gin&Tonic]

As an ex resident of Malaysia, good luck with that.

[JKL]

[quote quote=814018]As an ex resident of Malaysia, good luck with that.
[/quote]

Lol, yes – “Malaysia Boleh”… 😉

[PeterCoultas]

Cloud9/AMcW: I’d much prefer a 28 hour hold to a 6 hour one….at least there is time to do something interesting and wrack up some decent expenses….

[Cloud-9]

Thankyou. The reason I asked was not because of my 6 hour delay but because the passenger (who I shall call MP) with whom I disembarked – and subsequently spent several hours with in the MH lounge – was indeed on a through ticket from LHR.

Evidently the communication at LHR had been negligible, as indeed it was at KL, and the ground staff less than sympathetic or helpful.

Astonishingly, MP and hus fellow travellers had not been advised of EU261 at LHR and, because of his double delay, had to purchase an iPad charger at KL (not in hand luggage: rookie error!)and wondered if MH would refund the AUD50 or 60…

Disembarkation at KL was a fiasco: all exited from the second door – betwen W and Y – with no priority given to J/W passengers.

Reboarding was equally bad: one queue for all regardless of class or status: although later on a queue was opened for women and children only….

[K1ngston]

I commented on MH a month or so ago, I am not surprised you are having issues, the company is being driven into the ground and even at its hey day there was never good on ground support. There were of course always exceptions but this is driven by the individual and not the company which is fast gaining a terrible reputation here in the region..

The procedure of security at the gate at KUL and the cursory check just after immigration has always been a source of aggravation and exacerbated by their lacklustre approach to priority customers and in my opinion checking as well.

As gin&tonic states “good luck with that”

[JKL]

It’s such a shame, the way MH seems to be going. They’re generally superb in the air (especially on the A380) but all their work to rebuild the brand and win back customers with excellent fares is totally undermined by appalling on-the-ground / back-office customer services. Things are great when they’re going well, but they seem utterly unable to handle irrops. Or to communicate.

I’ve been waiting six months for a reply to one email about various issues I had; another took five months to get a cut-and-paste stock reply (that even then was badly written) saying nothing at all. Most of the time they simply don’t bother responding to email, and when they do, they might as well not have bothered. By phone they’re great at doing routine things like making bookings and selecting seats, but utterly useless at fixing problems. I’ve been trying to get a meeting with Adrian Keating, the UK Regional Manager, to discuss my concerns, but even he doesn’t respond to email, and ever since they centralised their call-handing, there is no way (at least that I know of) to call the London office directly – which is a shame, because the team there were always superb and a large part of the reason I’ve stayed loyal over the years (and sent many tens of thousands of pounds of spend their way).

As for their IT, they make BA look clever (e.g. successfully knocking out their entire online booking system for three weeks as part of a web site update). It’s as if they’ve never heard of the concept of testing software before deploying it.

I rather suspect that once I’ve flown my remaining bookings and burned my miles, that will be it from me. If they can’t even respond to their top-tier frequent flyers, they clearly don’t give a damn about anyone else.

Incidentally, in case anyone was wondering form my last post – “Malaysia Boleh” roughly translates as “Malaysia can do it” – the “but won’t” at the end is silent.

[Cloud-9]

Sadly all the above comments are true. This was MPs first – and last, as it happens – flight on MH.

He is a member of QF Chairmans Lounge and intends telling everybody about the fiasco which saw him arrive in Melbourne more than a day late.

Airlines never consider who may be traveling with them: an especially important consider when things go wrong. Perhaps they should

[K1ngston]

The other day flying up to KUL from SIN, our Travel Agents put me on a SQ code share on MH hardware (pays to read the small print or would have declined the flight at point of booking)

Anyway get to Changi check in, asked if there were any delays was assured not, and had time to browse at Changi before the 13.40pm flight. Went to the gate for security check ( done at each gate at Changi) and sat down waiting for them to call the flight.

20 mins before the flight they told us there would be a 90 minute delay and we needed to vacate the lounge until the gate would open again, meaning we had to go back through security and have to be checked again before departure

When I arrived back at the gate I specifically asked whether the flight would be arriving for the already delayed flight and they assured me that it was so we went through the hole rigmarole of security again and we were sitting there waiting for the flight and then they told us the flight had been cancelled and that we would have to vacate the gate again, head to transfer to be put on another flight which was going in one hour … Upshot is that flight was also delayed so asked to be off loaded and will learn to read the fine print…

There was no communication, the staff (MH dressed) could not give a damn, they are the regions joke airline and more and more people will now no longer fly them …. The days surely are numbered!

[Cloud-9]

I started this thread to enlist assistance for MP following his 24 hour delay at LHR and subsequent 6+ hours at KL. However, I have now decided to catalogue the littany of errors from the start.

Due to callings on my time here I will have to split it up.

The Boarding.
Passport control and security was easy at 7.10 and I was in the CX lounge by 7.30. I chose this over the MH lounge as I had computer work and printing to do, and the MH office suite consists of a tired old notebook with a wonky mouse and the ability to print a maximum of 3 pages providing they are emailed to the lounge dragon.

I departed the lounge at 8.40 and made my way to gate C1 in time for my 9.20 flight to MEL. Previous MH experience has taught me to sit near the boarding gates. Disabled and children were requested to board first, along with J passengers. Although only a single queue to recheck passports and boarding passes, there was a separate gate for premium travellers and I was first into my cabin.

At 9.20 the pilot came on the tannoy to tell us that the plane was suffering ‘technical difficulties’, and ten minutes later advised us that our journey time would be longer than anticipated as we would need to stop somewhere to refuel……

By 10am we were advised we would need to change plane and, due either to the front door being used by workers or the airbridge not being there – it was difficult to determine what the pilot was saying – we all had to use the middle exit.

Walking backwards through the cabin, i heard the man in 2a (I was in 1a) ask if we would be able to use the lounge again, to which the stewardess immediately assented.

However, upon arrival at the holding gate he was denied this request. I confirmed that he had been told it was fine and the girl took a note of our seat numbers – she didn’t ask to see our boarding passes – and waved us away out of the sliding glass doors.

[Cloud-9]

The Lounge

Once in the MH F lounge, MP and I introduced ourselves and I was horrified to learn that he had already suffered a 24 hour delay at LHR.

Evidently information had been patchy at LHR to say the least. The MH staff were invisible and useless, and the British staff kind but unhelpful as they were also kept in the dark.

Arrangements had eventually been made for passengers to spend the night at a hotel, and MP had foolishly packed his iPad charger in his hold luggage after checking out. Subsequently his iPad was on 5% charge. We discussed this and thought it reasonable to assume the lounge would have a spare charger. MP hailed a member of the lounge staff and related the whole sorry saga clearly, and leaving out no detail of the dreadful (non) service he had received at the hands of MH. The chap just laughed and smiled at him. Clearly the lounge staff have been trained to nod, smile and agree with anything the passengers say, no matter how inappropriate the reaction or how poor their comprehension of the conversation is.

I got quite annoyed and told the chap it wasn’t funny and MH should do something about it. Did they have a spare charger? No. Were they prepared to offer a little goodwill to a passenger paying AUD6,000 for a ticket? No.

MP went and spent AUD50-60 on a delightfully lurid pink charger himself.

Eagerly awaiting an influx of passengers from the doomed flight, a flurry of excitement engulfed MP and I when 2 men entered the lounge about an hour later. One approached us and we chatted. It turned out he was on his way to BKK and was just after a glass of bubbly ?

We made phone calls home and at 1pm MP and I went for lunch in the F dining room.

By then we had been given a definite departure time of 1515 from gate C32.

I ordered salad and laksa; MP ordered soup and roast beef. My salad arrived first and, as I was eating it, my laksa and his beef arrived. They had even managed to stuff up his dining order…. no attempt was made to keep the laksa hot.

At 1420 came the call to reboard our flight to MEL…

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