THE handiness of the airasia Super App which claims to facilitate booking of flight tickets from over 700 airlines worldwide has hit a wall when at least half a dozen domestic/regional partners claimed that they have never authorised the app to sell their flight tickets in the first place.
Firing the first salvo, the Malaysia Aviation Group Bhd (MAG), which is the parent company of national carrier Malaysia Airlines Bhd (MAS), has filed for an injunction to stop AirAsia from selling Malaysia Airlines tickets on its airasia Super App.
“Yes, I would like to confirm that we have filed for the injunction as we were not able to reach a commercial agreement before this and they continued to sell our inventory,” theedgemarkets.com quoted MAG group managing director Captain Izham Ismail telling a media conference yesterday (April 18).
Aside from MAS, Batik Air Malaysia also notified potential passengers that the airline and other carriers within the Lion Air Group (Lion Air, Batik Air Indonesia and Wing’s Air) as well as Super Air Jet have never consented the airasia Super App to include their services.
“Further, we state that the airAsia Super App acted in an unauthorized manner by putting the group’s and Super Air Jet’s flights up for sale in its airasia Super App,” lamented Batik Air Malaysia.
“We have demanded airasia Super App to immediately remove or delete all the unauthorised products and services of the group and Super Air Jet in the airAsia Super App.”
In fact, Batik Air Malaysia and its associate airlines has also given the airasia Super App an ultimatum “to immediately remove the said unauthorised products and services or we will seek legal redress in accordance with the laws of Malaysia”.
“We wish to advise the general public to make all reservations of Batik Air flights on our website at www.batikair.com.my or through our authorised travel agents,” it added.
In MAG’s Izham’s words, the airasia Super App is an online travel agency (OTA) and that it takes seats from aggregators and consolidators, namely kiwi.com, which is not Malaysia Airlines’ partner.
“All airlines would want to work with OTAs, consolidators, aggregators and travel agents. But they must have a commercial agreement first because OTAs will do a mark-up, and (there is the matter of) after-sales service – those are key issues we need to resolve before we sign up with an OTA,” he noted.
Such arrangement is essential lest passengers can be inconvenienced in that who shall be taking responsibility in the event of ‘a screw up’ such as flight delays, cancellations or claiming refunds.
This is worrisome with regard to the airasia Super App as passengers who booked their flights via the app are also known to have endured even the most fundamental hassle of being unable ‘to make an enquiry with a human’.
In Malaysia Airlines case, 60% of its inventory is being sold directly by the airline on its website with about 25% to 30% by travel agents, 5% by ticketing offices while 12% by OTAs like Expedia and others, according to Izham. – April 19, 2023
