GEORGE TOWN: The Consumers' Association of Penang (CAP) has urged the Transport Ministry to take stern action against any airline for constant flight delays and cancellations affecting passengers.
CAP president Mohideen Abdul Kader said the ministry must thoroughly investigate and take stern preventive actions to safeguard consumers' rights.
He said CAP had received complaints from a consumer who, for work purposes, had paid Firefly in advance for a flight every Monday morning until mid-2025.
He said, according to the consumer, Firefly had consistently cancelled the Monday morning flights and rescheduled it to an afternoon flight instead.
"The reason usually given is operational issues. The consumer has sent this same complaint to Firefly, Malaysia Airlines, Mavcom and the ministry.
"The complainant has lamented that it looks like Firefly is only concerned with securing customers' business/money and then hides behind excuses like technical issues and operational issues so that they can cancel the scheduled flight.
"In the case of our complainant, it is unreasonable and highly questionable that Firefly is having operational issues every Monday morning for that particular flight (as stated by the complainant)," he told the New Straits Times.
As such, Mohideen said this warranted a thorough investigation by the ministry.
"The ministry must take stern preventive action against Firefly or any other airline with such dubious practices to safeguard consumers' rights," he added.
The Malaysia Aviation Group (MAG) had recently apologised to its customers for the recent increase in flight delays and cancellations affecting Malaysia Airlines and Firefly services.
MAG group managing director Datuk Captain Izham Ismail said a combination of factors, including weather, technical and manpower challenges, supply chain constraints and the ongoing normalisation of global aviation operations post-pandemic had contributed to operational difficulties.
Recently, there have been news reports about flight delays on both Firefly flights at Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport, Subang and Malaysia Airlines at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, as well as complaints about codeshare passengers.