PETALING JAYA: Malaysia Airlines (MAS) has come out tops but for the wrong reason – it accounted for the highest number of complaints received by the Malaysian Aviation Commission (Mavcom) in the second half of 2018.
In a report issued today, Mavcom said a total of 821 complaints were received from July 1 to Dec 31.
Of the total, 810 were against airlines and the rest against airports. This was an 11.7% increase compared with the same period in 2017 when Mavcom registered 735 complaints.
MAS clocked 431 complaints, or 50.3% of all cases against airlines. In the same period the year before, the national carrier accounted for 291 or 39.6% of the 721 complaints directed at airlines.
AirAsia came in second with 230 complaints, or 28% of the total, followed by Malindo with 69, making up 8.4% of all complaints. MAS Wings received only six complaints, the lowest of all seven carriers covered in the survey.
Mavcom said 99.6% of all complaints had been resolved and the cases closed. Mishandling of baggage, processing of refunds and flight delays accounted for 51.6% of all complaints.
It said that in 55% of all complaints, the airlines reversed their initial decisions in favour of a more amicable settlement.
Apart from the 821 complaints, there were others that were not included in the list for various reasons. A total of 573 cases could not be dealt with because the documents submitted were incomplete.
In 139 cases, no further action was considered because the airlines or airports were found to have fulfilled their obligations under the Malaysian Aviation Consumer Protection Code.
In another 69 cases, the complaints were either not related to the aviation industry or lodged more than a year after the event, so they were no longer within the scope of the code.
