Friday, June 17, 2011

Non Food

Anecdote of the week :

- I fainted outside a restaurant after suffering from a bad gastric, and went for a shisha dinner. champion they say :P I told my friend to open the car door for me but before he could open, I fainted. The restaurant staff helped and massaged my head while my colleagues panicked (told by them when i sedarkan diri. lol) I woke up minutes later and first thing I asked was.. " what happen?" and my colleagues started to shout " Are you ok or not!! oi!! " It was a funny but very scary moment. Imagine if I passed out and never wake up. =s

- I cried for the third day now because my colleague resigned. I know it's lame, very lame - especially when I haven't cried for 8 months!! But it so happen that while I'm having one of the stress-est job that could really dry your brain juice up, I have a bunch of great friends. and by friends I meant genuine one. Not the kind who back stabs you and all the politics shit.

We go for trainings by batch for a month before we really started working hands on, all of us became very, very close. and this colleague who resigned is the one I'm the closest with. It felt like something is missing and for once I felt like I'm in an empty office. And I'm feeling this in a department (yes just one department!) that has 400 people ok! All of us actually cried (even the macho men!) when she left and this isn't something you usually see in office especially in a fast pace foreign organization! I'm still very much in an emo state btw. :(

Just let me end with something my colleague wrote on facebook :
"a stranger. it takes a stranger to make us realize that sometimes in real life you just cant change anything. no matter how hard you try. a stranger sometimes could make you feel so touched and lose control completely. a stranger that could make everything in the world feel less a bad place to live in. i guess a stranger can really bring colours in our life. a stranger."

Wednesday, June 01, 2011

My Firefly Experience

Again and again, I've alwalys confessed how much I love plane rides and the aviation industry as a whole. Airports and plane rides thrills me and for me it's the best way of rejuvenating myself after working so hard. However that also meant that I tend to pamper myself and go for a full service airline. Don't get me wrong though, I have no problem on boarding a low cost airline or community airline, whichever way you may like to put it.



So just last week I was once again back to Kuching for a break and took Firefly for the first time. I won't say I bought it cheap tho. It was RM 198 inclusive of tax - without food and luggage check in. But again, regardless of how much I pay, a budget airline is a budget airline. I don't expect much from it. I'm not going to whine about the leg space or the fact that there's no inflight food served. (like how most people do - especially those who probably fly only once or twice and never boarded a full service airline before)

My parents took Firefly earlier this year and I did the check in for them and I was attended by two very rude staff. This time though, the ground staff were very polite and even willingly complied to my request of a seat exchange. I thought " wow, they have improved!" The flight was however delayed for almost an hour but it was a relieve for me cause I arrived the airport very late and I had wanted to get something from the airport.



The moment I entered the plane was when the bad experience started. I was welcome by cabin crews who looked very unfriendly, tired and errrr ... blur. I don't expect them to greet me with an ear to ear smile and guide me to my place or things like that, but all the cabin crews looked like they are untrained?

The major faux pas for me was when I reached my seat and have yet to even land on the seat, one cabin crew came to me and say - "Please tighten your seat belt." I gave her a dazed look and replied "what?" and even at this point I was not even seating! She then answered me like it was my first time boarding the plane - "You have to tighten your seat belt." It's ridiculous and pardon my words, stupid - because I have yet to even sit how the heck do I even tighten my seat belt!

When the crews have already armed the doors, I moved my luggage(just a small beg) up the seat next to me since I knew there wasn't gonna be anyone seating but one crew walked pass and said I couldn't put it on the chair. I thought ok, fine, I'll put it on the leg space of the seat and minutes later another cabin crew told me I have to put it "under" the seat. I was very irritated at that point, not only on the rules but the way I was told by the crew. I fly very often - and I do not have any crews from any airline telling me where to put my beg! No issues when I put my luggage on the seat either!



During the safety demonstration, I still thought they looked really blur and lacked the confidence a cabin crew should have.Thought the picture above could be an unlucky bad shot ? Let me show you another one below.



Seriously the facial expression from this particular crew totally amazed me. Speaking of the crews, Firefly really, really and must I emphasize again, REALLY need to train their crews on their language. Their English is bad, their Malay language is embarrassingly terrible.



Like any other budget airlines, they will start their inflight service once the seat belt sign is off. I was really tired since my flight was right after work and fell asleep minutes after take off. To my surprise, they actually woke me(and then every other sleeping customer) up to ask if I want to buy any food. Now, this is something I felt they should really improve on. I understand that they wanna make the utmost earnings from the inflight sales but you do not and NEVER wake a sleeping customer up just to ask if they would like to buy any inflight food!



I obliged anyway since I've already woken up and I was gonna write this review. Price wise it is almost similar to the other budget airline. I had tea (RM4) and Nasi Lemak(RM10). The tea was the 3 in 1 Lipton while the nasi lemak was nothing remarkable but edible. However as much as I have really high tolerance for spicy food, I felt like the nasi lemak is a tad too spicy for cabin temperature. I actually felt quite uncomfortable after that.

I think after this, I'm seriously gonna think twice or even thrice before flying with Firefly again. They gave me such a bad first experience that I have no plans to even want to put them as an option for flying domestic again.