Air Asia has posted a notice that their reservation system will undergo a major update tonight on Tuesday March 23, 2021 and that this will affect the administration of bookings as well as the check-in.
The maintenance on the reservations system will commence from 11.00pm (GMT +8) on Tuesday, 23 March 2021 to 3.00am on Wednesday, 24 March 2021 and will affect services on the airasia.com website, airasia superapp, AirAsia sales offices, counters.
Passengers with flights either tonight or tomorrow might want to complete their online check-in or other pending services this afternoon or early evening in order to avoid having issued tomorrow in case the update doesn’t go to plan.
The announcement was made on Twitter this morning:
Flight and SNAP bookings will be unavailable during this period from 11.00pm (GMT +8) on Tuesday, 23 March 2021 to 3.00am on Wednesday, 24 March 2021 on https://t.co/OsC52vu7AM website, airasia superapp, AirAsia sales offices, counters and through our AVA chat service.
— airasia (@airasia) March 23, 2021
You can access the full news release here.
AirAsia will be upgrading its Navitaire New Skies reservation system this week as part of its continuous effort to provide guests an enhanced online experience.
Flight and SNAP bookings will be unavailable during this period from 11.00pm (GMT +8) on Tuesday, 23 March 2021 to 3.00am on Wednesday, 24 March 2021 on airasia.com website, airasia superapp, AirAsia sales offices, counters and through our AVA chat service.
Guests will also not be able to perform check-ins via the web, super app and airport kiosks and counters, or manage their bookings until the upgrade is completed.
All guests flying during this period are strongly advised to check-in online or via the airasia super app ahead of the upgrade period and to print out their boarding pass, or use the E-Boarding pass where available. Web and airasia super app check in are available from 14 days prior to departure for all flights. … All other services on airasia.com will be available as usual.
This will impact the entire Air Asia network irrespective of the origin, most of which are domestic flights at the moment.
It’s generally a good idea to print out the boarding pass in cases like these just in case there is a breakdown of some vital systems. Whenever I see such an announcement and I’m scheduled to travel during that period or even a day beyond I feel more comfortable carrying a paper boarding pass.
I can still remember this roughly two years ago:
Kuala Lumpur International Airport In Chaos Due To Systems Outage
Thankfully I had all my documents printed in advance that day as well. It was a mess although this was the fault of the airport operator and not an individual airline.
Conclusion
Air Asia will update their reservations system tonight and passengers are advised that vital services won’t be available later tonight. If all goes well things are back online in the morning and operations continue as usual.
It wouldn’t be the first time however that an IT upgrade goes pear shaped and that it’ll have an impact on flight operations throughout the day or even beyond that. If you’re flying Air Asia tomorrow better complete the online check-in today and print your boarding pass if possible. In the very least save your e-boarding pass.
