Budget airline Air Asia has thrown the travel plans of thousands of Australians into disarray with the cancellation of direct flights from Australia to Bali.

The airline sent a text message to customers flying from Melbourne to the holiday island on Christmas Day, according to reports.

The text tells customers that direct flights to Denpasar had to be cancelled and that they would now fly to the island via Kuala Lumpur. The change also means the flight time has blown out from six hours to 13 hours, causing disruption for customers with pre-booked accommodation or activities.

Never trust a budget airline! Holidays now chaos after #AirAsia cancels direct Bali flights #CantBeTrusted http://t.co/SYR5H4i4Nu @theage

— NoKingHitz (@NoKingHitz) December 27, 2014

  Passengers took to Air Asia’s facebook page to vent their anger: Meg Wilcock wrote: ”AirAsia ruined our Christmas night with a nasty surprise. Not only would we be delayed 7 hours, but we would also have to stopover in KL. Direct flights to Bali starting on 26 December? … Instead we have a 13 hour trip. Consumer Affairs might be interested to learn about false advertising. Although we spent much time waiting on the phone to talk to your staff (who were extremely difficult to understand), we were told nothing could be done and given no reason for the change. What is going to happen for our *direct return flight*?

Rafael Vicentin Caccavali wrote: Got the same Christmas present as James Walker. Paid a premium for a direct flight, and received a delayed stop over in Kuala Lumpur. A major change with only 2 day notice. Result: wasted 300 dollars with the hotel. Useless Air Asia could not do anything to compensate us.

Belinda Hayes wrote: Booked a direct flight Melbourne to Bali on Sat 27 Dec only to now get the message that this will be diverted via KL. Have spent Christmas night on the phone to AirAsia who offered no reasonable solution.

Julie Chumbley wrote: Thank you for wrecking our family Christmas and my daughters wedding !! My daughter is due to be married on the 28th dec 2014 in bali and my daughter in law is a bridesmade and my son is walking her down the isle this was untill you changed my daughter in laws and sons Direct flight from the 27th dec 2014 to leave on the 28th dec with a stop over in kuala lumpa in which they will miss the whole wedding !! We called up to find out if we could change our flight to today and one lady said we could but put us through to another person in which we where hung up on and about 15 times we have called back and australia Air Asia tell us they cannot help and put us onto Indonesia air Asia where non of there call centre understands English and there call centre keep hanging up or giving us other numbers to call which are disconected. This service is beyond unacceptable and due to this my 2 kids will miss this very special day and they cannot afford another $1700 each to change there flights !! I would appreciate someone getting back to me that speaks and understand English to have this matter resolved! I will be going to consumer affairs about this problem if I do not here back ASAP.

Gave up on AirAsia to get me to bali. Rebooked on Garuda. Better get my refund from AirAsia — Yosuke Yoshikawa (@comet21) December 27, 2014

Now I hate Airasia.. 3 hours delay and nothing they do. They should pay for business lounge #airasia pic.twitter.com/KMYitRQ1fX

— koni (@koni_bali) December 24, 2014

More to come …