What a nine-hour delay teaches us about broken trust, brand promises, and marketing’s biggest blind spot
In branding, trust is a fragile currency—painstakingly earned, yet easily lost in a moment.
This reality was laid bare in a searing Letter to the Editor by Prof Mohd Said Bani, published in Focus Malaysia on 28 April 2025.
In it, he recounts a dismal experience with Firefly Airlines—one that should serve as a wake-up call to brands everywhere.
What should have been a simple Sunday afternoon hop from Subang to Penang descended into a nine-hour ordeal, marked by poor communication, a lack of accountability, and an almost surreal indifference to passenger needs.
“We turned up early at Subang Airport only to be told, with all the urgency of someone announcing that the cafeteria was out of sandwiches, that there was no flight. None until 8:35pm,” Prof Mohd Said wrote.
The incident—and the fiery backlash it ignited—offers a sharp lesson: service recovery isn’t merely an operational issue. It’s a branding issue.
In an era where customer experiences travel faster than advertising campaigns, marketers must realise the true test of a brand’s promise isn’t when things go right — it’s when things go wrong.
Yet in this case, no SMS alerts were sent. No courtesy calls made. Not even a proactive announcement at the airport.
Instead, Firefly’s idea of communication was a lone email sent late on a Saturday evening—and if you wanted timely updates via SMS, you needed to pre-pay RM2.50 during booking. In 2025, even basic courtesy has become a premium add-on.
It’s a stunning case study in how brands forget their primary contract with consumers: respect.
Rather than stepping up, Firefly’s “service recovery” amounted to little more than a shrug, vague suggestions to find alternative flights, and a quiet dismissal of passengers’ disrupted plans.
The tragedy here isn’t a few disgruntled travellers. It’s the long-term erosion of brand equity.
When operational efficiency falters, it’s communication that can still save a brand. Empathy, transparency, and genuine accountability are the last lines of defence.
Instead, Firefly appeared to channel the worst instincts of notoriously derided budget airlines—treating customers not as valued guests but as inconveniences cluttering their schedules.
The lesson for marketers is clear
In today’s hyper-connected world, brands are judged not by their slick campaigns, but by their conduct when crises strike.
A delayed flight is forgivable. Disdain for your customers is not.
Brands that hope to survive must invest not just in advertising, but in operational integrity, customer-first communication, and a culture of accountability.
The court of public opinion is swift—and once trust is broken, no amount of marketing spend can easily repair it.
Perhaps it’s time for Firefly to rethink its brand positioning.
Until then, the brutal reality stands: Brand trust isn’t built on the best days. It’s built—and broken—on the worst.
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he APPIES is an annual event that presents a rare opportunity for creative, media, digital and marketing agencies or brands to present their best campaigns to the industry.
This is the only event where Live Presentations meets Live Judging.
Similar to TED Talks, The APPIES is the chance for great presenters with outstanding work to show it off to some of the industry’s most important industry leaders.
This year’s winners will receive Gold, Silver or Bronze trophies for 21 categories, and 6 special Best of Best categories (red trophies) that require no submissions!
Campaign entries must have run between June 2024 to May 2025
