The legendary Steve Belkin (known on FlyerTalk as beaubo) checks in to share his experiences flying AirAsia in Malaysia.
It’s normally advisable to check in online when you’re flying an ultra low cost carrier. There are often fees for airport check-in, and lines at the airport can be extremely long because ground staff costs are one area for cost savings – passengers don’t pay much for their ticket, but they’ll pay with their time.
Steve didn’t do this, so when he arrived at the Kuala Lumpur he went to use a check-in kiosk. Not checking in in advance, he hadn’t been automatically assigned a seat. This turned out both to be an inconvenience and a benefit.
- He couldn’t check in at the kiosk
- This was because he’d been moved to an exit row (and the system wouldn’t validate his eligibility).
He waited 70 minutes in line for a check-in agent. It took them 10 minutes to sort out his booking. And that placed him within 45 minutes of departure when check-in was inhibited. A manager overrided this, allowing the agent to issue a boarding pass, and explaining to him “that Western sounding names get flagged for exit row seats” because they’re assumed to be more “decent and familiar with emergency exit procedures.”
A couple of days later, flying again, he didn’t check in in advance. He was again given an exit row seat. Others who had checked in at the airport – all locals – were not.
[T]oday, just to make sure my being locked out was similarly motivated, I discreetly looked at the seat assignments of the other manually processed people in line ahead of me, and they all were local and had no exit tow seats. And sure enough, I was seated in the exit row.
As Steve put it, “Well traveled well off white people” being “Western-name profiled” for a benefit seems wrong. Yet I’ve found that there’s often tremendous privilege being white in Southeast Asia. There may be derisive names called, like farang (foreigner) in Thailand. But white privilege can also be explicit.
For instance, I’ve shared in the past that I was escorted past the velvet rope into what was then the hottest night club in Singapore because I was white and smartly dressed – and early in the evening the club was beneath its quota for white people (who are seen as signifying status and taste to locals).
Here it may not even be white people as such, as much as locals avoiding putting Malays in the exit row out of disdain for local passengers. And probably not an official policy of the airline as much as an area where local employees have discretion, and employ their prejudices.
Don’t you have to be able to speak English to sit in an exit row? If so, it could explain it too.
With bated breath, I await what are sure to be erudite, insightful commentary from such intellectuals as Chad, CHRIS, CMorgan … how come they all have ‘C’ names?
Reader tip: GUWonder and platy might be the only ones commenting with actual sense. Ctrl+F for their names when this comment section gets long.
Air Asia also don’t check in customers if the miss the 1 hour check in prior to flight departure. We were 3 minutes late and found they have shut the check in desk. When we we went to their ticket counter the staff were busy chatting and joking around between themselves refusing to even consider checking us in dispute pleading that they still have an hour before flight time. This is a small terminal in Kota Bahru with only one flight per hour. We had to switch to another airline which is over an hour later in order to fly back to Kuala Lumpur. We will not use them again as there is alternative better service airlines like Firefly and Batek airline. It does not make much thinking to see why they are not doing well lately.
Air India used to be sort of notorious for favoring non-Indians/non-Asians over Indians/Asians in how they dealt with passengers at airports and especially in the sky.
Qatar airways op-up lady told me that they always upgrade western sounding names because they cannot see who the person is when they are trying to choose which pax to upgrade when Y is full. She said they do that because western people behave well in business…It made me sad but given the airline and how their staff are educated, I was not surprised. Of course, she said the first priority is the status with oneworld but usually there are many pax at the same level of status, so she usually has to choose someone.
QR does this with opups.
Yes racism.is alive and well
I think this is a one off. I fly Air Asia all the time, and the exit rows sit empty unless the plane is completely full. I pay around $10 to sit in exit rows and have them to myself. And FAs are diligent about chasing seat hoppers back to their original seats. Most check-in online before the flight so they don’t need to wait in line. I guess at the airport kiosk you get allocated the final seats which would be exit row, or ‘hot seats’ as they call them on Air Asia.
@Daniel (which happens to be my second name) Exactly, refreshing to see thru the objectivity lens!
Some years ago I was traveling with my non-english speaking gf (Venezuelan like me) and we lost a connection, we were downgraded from J to exit row and when the gate agent briefed us, my gf wasn’t able to answer even with a simple ‘yes’ (I was tired and totally forgot to tell her in advance, I tried to give her a hint but the GA didn’t budge). I told the GA calmly that we come from a long intl travel, we had spent 3 hours in immigration lane and already lost our business seat assigned flight, but she said ‘I’m sorry, its FAA’
If I was a dem the natural outcome for this was to call the lady racist, record everything and make a drama, but as i’m not a leftist I complied and accept the additional downgrade without bothering the passenger on the lane.
@Daniel The simple answer is No, there is no requirement to understand English on AirAsia.
This is because the FAA is in the United States and does govern flights outside the US or coming into the US.
AirAsia is a low cost carrier here in Asia and as such you have Thai AirAsia, AirAsia India, AirAsia Philippines…etc that all fly local routes. So their emergency exit cards and announcements will first be in the language of that country before English. In some cases, there may not even be an English speaking passenger onboard depending on where the flight is going.
I feel like the thought process would be different; why put the western person on the exit row when they will just save themselves like the encroaching people they are, i.e. colonist without regards to others? Just saying from history.
Like @AJ, I have actually flown AirAsia (PNH-DMK, DMK-PNH and other flights) a number of times and also upgraded to exit row seats. The upgrades are relatively inexpensive and I have always had at least one empty seat next to me and often a whole row. A few other passengers who are willing to spend a few more dollars do this also. Most of the upgraders crowd into a few rows of seats at the front of the aircraft instead. Everyone in the exit row seats that I have talked to have paid for the upgrade. I have not seen white privilege, only green privilege. The story sounds like a false narrative to me. In fact, in Southeast Asia, as a farang you get to pay more for going to many parks than the locals do, unlike in the USA. You also have to sometimes pay more for transportation and goods bought at the market. Finally, farang is not a derisive name. It means French person but is used for all light skinned European descent people. Some Thais may use it derogatorily after dealing with too many privileged light skinned people who are out of control and think that they don’t have to observe local civility. If you travel away from the tourist areas and into the countryside where few farangs go, you will find it is almost never meant derogatorily.
Ya I have never had this happen in all the time living in Indonesia for the last 8 years. 99.99999% of the time I have had to pay for that. Only 1 time was I given the emergency exit row seat for free and that was because the flight was maybe 50% full and there was no one sitting there. All the other times I was asked if I understood Bahasa Indonesia if I was at the exit seat
What new with that…. Par for the course….