“Capital follows confidence” as defence courts private money
Outside investment and the direction in which venture money flows may reveal what defence will buy years before formal programmes begin.
AirAsia has announced a comprehensive upgrade of its call centre services that, among other developments, now includes a 24-hour self-help option and the ability to shorten call waiting time drastically.
The upgrades are part of AirAsia’s efforts to quickly and vastly improve services as its passenger volume surges across its entire network.
AirAsia’s free 24-hour self-help option provides automated responses to the most common enquiries, such as those on flight schedules, booking status, flight status, refund status and baggage tracking. The option employs interactive voice response technology.
Alongside this, AirAsia has introduced a free web chat facility on its website for all guests registered online with AirAsia. The carrier has assigned more service agents for the efficient handling of concurrent chats. The web chat service is available daily from 9 am to 6 pm.
In what it describes as “a huge step up”, the airline is halving its turnaround time for e-mail responses to pre-flight inquiries from 24 hours to within 12 hours. For post-flight inquiries, guests may fill in the online feedback form on airasia.com.
AirAsia is also rolling out a full-service phone line for guests who may opt for personalised premium services. This Premium Customer Service Line, which aims to engage callers within 20 seconds, is designed to provide a wide range of fast high-quality services for bookings, changes to booking, payments and much more. The Premium Customer Service Line is available only to guests calling within Malaysia and using local landline and mobile phone numbers.
Bo Lingam, chief operating officer, AirAsia, commented, “Our increased focus on service improvement is in line with our efforts to position AirAsia as a low-fare airline with products and services at par with those of the best legacy carriers. While we offer low fares, we also offer premium quality. The upgrades are there to give our guests a pleasant experience starting from their first point of contact with AirAsia.”
“We get an average of 6,000 calls a day, and we had to find a solution for easing traffic. Thus the comprehensive upgrade of our call centre services that now include much faster responses and better self-help facilities,” Lingam added.
Outside investment and the direction in which venture money flows may reveal what defence will buy years before formal programmes begin.
The Department of National Defence expects initial contracts to deliver thousands of uncrewed systems, but has yet to establish the quantities, capability mix or deadline behind Ottawa’s promised tenfold expansion.
The company told Shephard that Ukraine is operating modified Protector weapon stations originally supplied for armoured vehicles, with human operators authorising engagements from hundreds of kilometres away.
A report from the Council on Geostrategy argues the UK should move away from a traditional balanced force and shift investment to naval, air and space capabilities, backed by a larger fleet of attack submarines and deeper AUKUS integration.
At its technology summit in London, attended by Shephard, Thales UK examined the importance of speed to delivery, the growing focus on cross-domain capabilities and how procurement reform could be crucial for future battlefield advantage.
Are all systems ready for the next mission? Have upgrades been applied? Are all assets aligned to deploy together, on time and fully prepared? In modern defence operations, readiness is no longer measured platform by platform. It is measured by how well people, assets, data and decisions move together — across land, sea and air.