Mad Day of Departure

On Friday morning, I took a bus back from Ipoh to KL (LCCT airport) to catch a flight back to Palembang. I left Ipoh at 9:30am but halfway up a hill after Gopeng (30 mins away from Ipoh), the bus broke down! All the passengers had to come off the bus which emitted burnt rubber smell. It seemed like the timing belt of the bus broke. The driver called for help and he told us that there will be another bus coming to pick us up soon.

After 45 mins, a mechanic came on a bike to check on the situation. He told us that the office did not have any spare timing belts, so we had to wait for the bus which was supposed to be here in 30 mins according to the driver. Everyone was restless as time passed. Fortunately we had some shade at the side of the hill. Some people had to take a leak near the bushes along the hill.

After 1.5 hrs, a replacement bus finally arrived. There were a couple of empty buses which stopped for us but they were going to downtown KL and not the LCCT airport.

The replacement bus took off at 12 noon and reached LCCT airport at 2:45pm. I was really hungry because I did not have any lunch. I quickily rushed to the check in counter but was surprised to find that the Palembang Air Asia counter was no longer there.... they have combined all INDONESIAN destinations to one area and only had 6 counters. Of course there were long lines but luckily there were other PLM passengers. At 3pm the Air Asia staff finally opened a separate counter for PLM passengers. However, the stupid check in staff would not let me off the hook for a mere 1kg overweight baggage! He insisted that I could not take anything out from the luggage because there isn't any time left. Therefore I was forced to pay a RM20 overweight charge.

Upon completing the check in process, I rushed to the immigration area only to be stopped by another Air Asia staff who told me that my hand luggage is overweight! I was very pissed off and took some stuff out from my hand luggage and put them into a plastic bag. Then he told me that I was only allowed to take 1 piece of hand-carry. I pointed at the many passengers who had more than 1 piece of hand-carry walking past me and asked him why they were not stopped. In the end he gave in and let me through. By the time I reached the seat on the plane, it was already 3:25pm (my flight departs at 3:35pm).

I was also truly disappointed with the call centers at Air Asia. I had called the number for 3x and 15 mins each time but was always put on hold. If any call centers had to put a customer on hold for more than 5 mins, they should just close down their poorly managed call centers. After the rush, I was truly pissed off but also relieved that I got onto the flight on time to leave for Palembang.