Malaysian Airlines Review

Overall Rating

Cheap. When it goes right they are OK.

When it goes wrong, you'd better be prepared for a bumpy ride.

My wife and I were unfortunate enough to book a flight (MH001/23/02/07) on MAS to Kuala Lumpur. Now, from previous experience the airline has been good, however this time it all went wrong and I was shocked at how badly the MAS I remember has degraded. When the aircraft developed a number of problems on the tarmac they kept us onboard for 2 hours, then in the terminal for another 4. They called armed police to the terminal when some of the families started complaining, but in a terminal made for 200 people with a good 300 odd in there - well you can imagine. They let off all the first class passengers first so they were perched on seats whilst kids and old people lay scattered around on the floor. At one point they wheeled out biscuits and orange juice (this was about 1am, half way through the nightmare) but when I used the toilets on the aircraft I saw all the stewardesses tucking into the passenger meals whilst the maintenance crew snacked on desserts! By the time they sorted out hotels it was around 4am (from a 10pm flight) and the first thing they did was try to board all the first class and business class passengers on the few coaches available. In my crowd we had a lady of about 70 who could barely stand as they'd taken away her wheelchair and as it was on the plane they couldn't get it off again! However we then spent another two hours going round to the various hotels, getting off, queueing, being told they were full, waiting for another bus, repeat. we would have screamed at the MAS representative but there wasn't one. We didn't see another MAS person except for crew until we arrived in KL 2 days later. When we got to the final hotel the MAS crew actually came up to us and demanded that they be checked in first or they wouldn't fly us the next day! We persuaded them to let the old lady check in first but then they started threatening to call the police if we didn't stop arguing with them. Finally we got in, we grabbed some sleep and boarded another flight at 6, some 18 hours after the plane was due to take off.

I have contacted MAS reps in Heathrow and they're sticking to the 'not our fault, the plane broke down lahhh' mantra. They stated I should claim for any inconvenience off my travel insurance. I was actually looking for a gesture of recognition that the treatment we received was diabolical. So my advice is - If everything goes according to plan then the treatment on MAS is OK. But when it goes wrong, expect a horrible start to the holiday, rude staff, an uncaring attitude. Consider SIA as an alternative and have an overnight stay in Sing.