PHILLIPPA BUTT
Aviation Reporter, NT News
DARWIN travellers have taken to Facebook to vent their fury with AirAsia after the airline changed its scheduled times for flights to Bali.
Dozens of messages were left from disgruntled passengers, after the airline sent out texts to inform passengers their flights had been changed by about 12 hours.
Brent Rowley was meant to fly to Bali next week, and then again in May for his cousin’s wedding.
“Now I’m not going to be able to go for that one,” he said.
“I’d organised it so I could leave after work on Friday and be back on Sunday evening so I didn’t miss any work. Now I just think I’ll have to miss it.”
His flights for next weekend were also changed — meaning he has paid for accommodation when he won’t be in Indonesia.
“You can bet the hotel won’t refund me,” he said.
Mr Rowley said he was offered a number of options regarding his flights — to refund the tickets, receive a credit or change his flights.
However he said his only options to contact AirAsia were to ring the helpline in Indonesia or use the online chat forum.
“Obviously I didn’t want to sit on an international phone call for an hour or so, so I went online and I was in a line of about 150 trying to get help.”
“I waited about half an hour, then while I was typing out all of my flight details, he cut me off and I had to start all over and wait another half-hour.”
Larrakeyah resident Jodie Marland said she was in a similar situation on Wednesday.
“On Monday I booked flights for a family of four to fly to Bali in September,” she said.
“Then on Tuesday I got a text saying they’d changed my flights.
If they’d known they were going to change the flights, why did they let me buy them?”
The mother of two said she had booked AirAsia because it offered earlier flight times than Jetstar.
“Our kids are 11 and 13, that’s why we went for those flight times in the daytime.
“We did the Jetstar flights last time and came back in the middle of the night and it was pretty punishing.”
Ms Marland’s family will be visiting Bali with family friends, who have opted for the Jetstar flights.
“We would have flown with them if we’d known the times were going to be the same.“
AirAsia was contacted for comment yesterday, but did not respond by deadline.
It’s understood a certain number of flight schedules are determined by airports, not airlines.