AirAsia looking at reducing fuel surcharge

AirAsia Bhd is looking at reducing fuel surcharge following the decline in global crude oil prices.

In a note to its registered website users yesterday, AirAsia chief executive Datuk Seri Tony Fernandes said: "I have been working very hard with the team at AirAsia to look at reducing our fuel surcharge, and you should look forward to the good news in the next couple of months." He did not elaborate.

Meanwhile, Fernandes said in the same note that there had been a sudden unanticipated surge in call volume to its call centre. "I notice that lately we have received numerous complaints on our call centre response time," he said.

Fernandes said this was due to the huge success of AirAsia X, especially with the Perth and Melbourne route announcements. "These new, exciting long-haul routes have resulted in longer talk-time between callers and our agents, and subsequently caused our lines to be congested."

He assured guests that the call centre team was working with its IT department to upgrade the facility and that by Nov 6, the centre would have enough agents and sufficient IT infrastructure to deal with the influx.

"By this, we aim to improve our call centre performance to 90%, ie a drop-call rate of 10% only. By January, we'll be moving to a high-tech call centre to cater to more calls," Fernandes.