JYSim for jobless-yokel Sim

Nobody paid me anything for this post. I write this out of my love for our national carrier as well as my admiration on how this airline maintained its flawless image of excellent quality despite (worrying) financial problems.
2 years ago around winter we (my family and I) toured Beijing and our flight was, inevitably, with MAS. That was my first medium-haul flight and I did not have any idea of how an airline onboard service should be. As far as I can recall, I did slept on that flight (which I later realised is oh-so-difficult, especially in economy class), food was great (compared with KLM’s) and my knees were never crushed by the seat in front of me.
2 years later I flew KLM and Alitalia for AFS, and later with China Airlines to ROC, and that’s when I realise how good MAS is. First of all, let’s start with how bad others did…
KLM
Upon boarding, there were stewardesses greeting you onboard, but they were more than reluctant to assist you with your hand luggage. I personally have to help others (esp. girls) in my group to load their baggage. They did not show you to your seat (as MAS did). The only thing you felt welcomed is the 12-inch screen above the aisle writting ‘Welcome Onboard KLM’ and several swans pecking each other (icon of KLM).
I was not asked of my meal choice on my first flight. It felt like a privilege to be served, but in fact it should be the opposite. Legroom was unbearable, and you can as well imagine that when you’re in the window seat and the passenger in front of you is a huge 6′ 2′ Caucasian.
It’s funny to realise that you actually disembark later than your stewardesses and stewards. They’re 300m in front of you, with their boring sea-blue uniform trotting towards immigration while you’re still struggling with your luggage and 300+ passengers jostling for the exit.

Alitalia
Aside strikingly gorgeous stewardesses with their green-red-white scarves, serving with a smile is as precious as a diamond onboard the 30 year old aircraft. Anyway, legroom was fine, so as the food and beverages. Italian airports are horrendous to land in when you have huge and eye-catching luggages. Twice my luggage was almost forced open with the second attempt successfully removing the baggage straps (one more step to opening the trunk of valuables).
Boarding was ridiculous as you are so packed into sardine-can buses before they drop you 50 feet away from the aircraft and you can actually walk beside the engines and drop a your boarding pass in (which will cause the engine to explode later).

After learning my lesson with these European carriers, I so fortunately have to take another sector home after KLM touched down in KL. The whole process was very pleasant and, despite the old aircraft, you feel so at home. I might have mentioned this, but it’s worth re-mentioning. It’s a MAS stewardess who reminds me it’s the Chinese New Year season, and it’s another MAS steward who helped me with my oversized hand baggage while jokingly asked if I shopped too much for ‘aunties’ at home.
China Airlines
Cabin was immaculate and brightly new, but the drawback of using young crews is, obviously, they have no sense of service and not an niche of problem-solving skills. Other aspects fine otherwise. Besides the gleeful check-in personnel who so-gladly charged us for overweight baggage, and some turbulences because they’re stingy to fly a bigger aircraft, and the creative-but-not-necessarily-fun in-flight entertainment, China Airlines is a pleasant carrier if you’re price-sensitive.

Last weekend while browsing through Caucasians boasting how good Singapore Airlines is, I saw this link (http://www.airliners.net/discussions/trip_reports/read.main/61808) which leads to this trip report written by an Australian who flew literally around the world with MAS. Before this I always thought MAS is at-least comparable to Singapore, but seeing how the Australian described his wonderful experiences with MAS Singapore is cast into total shame. First of all, Singapore Airlines is, undeniably ‘Singaporean’. Usual carriers have Y and M for economy class, they have an extra, Q, for discounted fares. What? I buy a Q ticket, I’m not entitled for the emergency exit row? Or do I get smaller portions of wine? And speaking about wine, it’s almost free-flowing for Caucasians, but if you’re not, better watch out! Asians are prone to get drunk and we don’t usually serve wine for Asians, sorry, and get back to your seat.
Further research into Skytrax proved me right. In almost every category (esp. so in economy class and cabin crew), Singapore is not as good as Malaysian, the airline lounge included.
However, these accusations of Singapore is not to be proved correct for the time being as I have not got chance to fly with the ‘big fat goose’.
I understand that you might think MAS as the same level as other ‘Malaysia’ related products i.e. Proton, Putrajaya etc, but trust me, this is a real catch. Can’t it be anyhow untrue if, according to Skytrax, a passenger is so grateful she even presented the crew with a souvenir (of course this fella must be Caucasian).
Given the track record of MAS, I’m sure it will soon be awarded the airline of the year (which it already grabbed once in 2004). Should MAS not be in a financial crisis we could as well boast about it next year (Visit Malaysia Year 2007).
Once again, nobody paid me anything, but I’d like to urge so many readers here (half of them came to know this by my never-tiring advertisement), fly MAS, even when you have other options and cheaper fares (as in AirAsia). I comprehend Malaysians are mostly price-sensitive but would you rather be treated like a royalty by paying a little more than to be abused and break your knee when the person in front of you reclines?
Fly Malaysia Airlines -
World’s Best Cabin Staff 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004
Skytrax Quality-Certified 5-star Airline (mind you, AirAsia is only 3)
Airline of the Year 2004
Best South-East Asian Airline 2005
Best Economy Class 2006
Best Cabin Staff in the World (Top 3 Airlines)
Best Cabin Staff for Asia (2nd Place)

I apologise should you find this post a little overly commercialised and does not suit your taste. This is my blog, I can do whatever I want, so sue me for not being entertaining enough.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 27th, 2006 at 5:51 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.