AirAsia confirms that yellow tape on seats a temporary measure for cosmetic cabin repairs

Malaysian multinational budget airline, AirAsia, has said that the yellow tape spotted on its plane seats are for cosmetic cabin repairs and that the tape used was a temporary measure that the airline had taken, according to Channel News Asia. 

The statement comes after a Facebook user, Edward Yong, posted photos of the airline seats in an AirAsia plane covered with yellow tape over its armrests.

In his post, he complained that he felt very "malu", a Malay word used to refer to embarrassment or being shy. He continued by saying that foreigners must think that they are going to a "backward country" and that it looked like the plane was "held together by tape". He added that the flight was travelling from Taipei to Kuala Lumpur. 

AirAsia X's head of engineering, Alvin Tan, reportedly said that the tapes were "not a safety issues" and that the yellow vinyl tape was used as a result of a shortage of spare parts. He added that the tape was used to prevent flight disruptions and to prioritise getting guests to their destination safely and in a timely manner. 

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He added that spare parts have been ordered and repair work is ongoing to fix the armcaps. 

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE has reached out to the airline for more information. 

The news comes shortly after it was announced that AirAsia would be replacing its AI chatbot, AirAsia Virtual Allstar (AVA), with an enhanced version called ‘Ask Bo’. The design of Ask Bo is inspired by and emulates Bo Lingam, Group CEO of AirAsia Aviation Group Limited, which is the aviation arm of Capital A.

AirAsia claims that this version has better AI built in with machine learning capabilities. Ask Bo provides detailed and customised information to guide customers along their journey, and enables self-service functions for faster access to resolutions.