Firefly’s head of marketing and communications department, Angelina Fernandez, said the airline was now able to offer more variety, including to destinations worldwide through connectivity with Malaysia Airlines (MAS).

“In the previous three years, we offered only Firefly destinations but this year we are offering over 100 MAS destinations worldwide, including London, Paris and Tokyo,” she said at a press conference here Thursday.

With the slogan “Kick Off Your Holiday with Firefly Holidays”, Angelina said the theme would be on football as the World Cup fever was already in the air.

The packages are categorised under “Striker” for the best value package deals, “Midfielder” for packages with complementary value-adds such as spa sessions, dinners and transfers, and “Defender” for free and easy packages.

Another offer is Firefly tickets at RM1 to all destinations via the newly introduced Firefly Mobile application.

Head of Firefly’s distribution Lawrence Chai said this promotion would only be available onsite and visitors must make their purchases using their mobile phones.

Angelina said following the success in last year’s MATTA Fair, the airline had decided to reward customers with attractive prizes worth more than RM500,000.

“There will be a ‘penalty kick’ for any customer spending more than RM6,000 on Firefly and MAS packages with the chance to win a Maxis-Blackberry mobile phone or flight tickets,” she said.

The flying simulator, which was the main attraction on last year’s event, will again be present to give visitors a chance to test their piloting skills.

“The top three best piloting and landing participants will stand to win two complimentary Firefly tickets each as well as MAS tickets to Los Angeles, Istanbul and Hong Kong as grand prizes,” Angelina said.

MATTA Fair will be held at the Putra World Trade Centre in Kuala Lumpur from March 12 to 14.

Source

Last July, I had purchased Firefly FY3435/FY3436 return tickets, Subang to Padang, Indonesia. The flight are scheduled in November. I am selecting the Firefly flight is because of the fare is cheaper than the price offered by AirAsia. The fair paid is RM340 for 2 adults and 1 baby.

Ticket purchasing are done online. The ticket are then being sent to me via email once the transaction was successful. As usual, the tickets is considered legitimate.

After that, I gradually doing some early preparation for my trip later, such as booking accommodation and others.

However, after two months of ticket purchased, in September, I received SMS from the Firefly to state that my flight was canceled due to reformed operations. The company will refund fees that I paid in the past two months.

Therefore, I had to find other alternatives to replace the tickets, the AirAsia flight ticket. Tickets for the same date and destination are available at higher price compare to the ticket purchased in the past two months. I had to buy a ticket which costs me RM560.

I called Firefly to request for compensation for failure to provide the service I had paid two months ago, but the company did not treat my request. The call centre officer does not provide a good service and even threatening me to hang up the call. I am requasting to speak to the superior but she gave told me that the supervisor are in the meeting. On the next day, I repeat the call, but other reasons were given, the supervisor are on maternity leave.

From my point of view, the company should refund the flight tickets along with compensation because they had taken the money two months ago. They should be liable for the decision they had made.

In addition, the notification made by the company through SMS is not reasonable. For things that are considered critical like this, they should contact by phone to confirm that the customer are acknowledged.

I hope that Firefly can increase their level of professionalism in the future and to other customer to be more careful to buy flight tickets.

ANWAR ZAINOL
Pokok Sena, Kedah.

SMS from Firefly

Its marketing and communications head Angelina Fernandez said the postponement was to allow Firefly to restrategise its plans.

She said this would enable the company to find ways to fulfil the Malacca government’s request to fly from the state to Indonesian destinations such as Pekan Baru, Djambi, Palembang and Batam to tap the medical tourism market.

‘We shall continue our dialogue with the Malacca government.

‘We remain optimistic that Firefly will light up Malacca just like how we did for Perak,’ she said.

Malacca Chief Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Ali Rustam had earlier expressed his disappointment with Firefly for scrapping its plans to fly to Singapore from the state, which had spent RM131.5mil to upgrade its airport.

Source: AsiaOne