500-fold surge in traffic on AirAsia website on day one of free-seat campaign

Jacqueline Ann Surin

PETALING JAYA: Traffic on low-cost carrier AirAsia's website surged 500-fold compared to a normal day, less than 24 hours after the launch of its one million free seats campaign on Wednesday.

"We urge the public to be patient and to keep trying," said Kathleen Tan, its executive vice-president (commercial) in a statement in response to complaints.

She said since the last major free ticket promotion in 2005 when two million free seats were offered, AirAsia had upgraded its Internet services by double-fold, lengthened the promotion period from five to 10 days, and posted friendly booking tips.

Many travellers hoping to get cheap tickets following the carrier's one million free seats campaign were disappointed on Wednesday.

Some spent hours online to make bookings but were greeted with error messages or hanged pages or told their transaction was void despite providing credit card details.

Frequent traveller Mark Choo said he spent more than three hours on Tuesday night before AirAsia's offer was advertised publicly, and he still had problems. He said while he succeeded in making two single bookings, it was impossible to make block bookings for more people.

"Each time I made a mistake, the page would hang and I had to start all over again. It happened about five times before I could make payment," he told theSun.

"But after I had submitted my credit card details, I was told the transaction was interrupted and to call customer care. At the same time, I was also told not to re-book."

Choo said he could not get through to customer care on the phone, and because he was told not to re-book, he was left in limbo until he was told by customer care yesterday morning his transaction was void.

Another traveller, Chee Sek Thim, said what was frustrating was that completing one step of the four or five-step booking process did not guarantee moving on to the next, and he had to keep going back to the beginning.

Chee, who spent several unsuccessful hours yesterday trying to book his flights, said since AirAsia is offering free tickets to generate publicity, it must make sure it can handle the traffic.

Updated: 09:13PM Wed, 10 Jan 2007

Source: The SUN

External Links:
AirAsia - http://www.airasia.com