The Malaysian Aviation Group (MAG) has confirmed that an injunction to stop AirAsia from selling Malaysia Airlines tickets has been made.
MAG group chief executive officer Izham Ismail said the case will be heard in August following the filing of the injunction late last year.
“Yes we’ve filed for the injunction as we were not able to reach a commercial agreement before this and they continued to sell our inventory,” he said today.
Yesterday, Transport Minister Anthony Loke revealed the status of the injunction to the media after discrepancies in airline ticket classification and prices for flights from Kuala Lumpur to Tawau became an issue recently.
Loke said the two companies were involved in a dispute due to tickets being sold at high prices with a lack of regulation.
Izham said despite AirAsia being a legally recognised online travel agency (OTA), the problem with the sales of Malaysia Airlines tickets by AirAsia is that the latter had bought seats from aggregators and consolidators.
“In this case they took inventory from Kiwi.com who aren’t our partners.
“It’s normal for all agencies to want to work with OTAs and travel agents but you must have a commercial agreement first because OTAs will do a mark up and after sale service are key issues we need to resolve before committing,” he said.
Izham said 60 per cent of their inventory is sold by them, 25-30 per cent comes from travel agents, five per cent from ticketing offices while around 12 per cent is from OTAs like Expedia.
He also added that the parent company does not receive passenger details when tickets are purchased from OTAs, which becomes an issue as the company is unable to contact customers in the event of a flight delay or other mishaps.
He said this causes confusion and frustration among customers, which is why a commercial agreement is important to set boundaries in pricing and enables the sharing of information in a seamless way.
“In the end the agreement will benefit the customers so for now that’s all we can say as the case will be heard in court soon,” said Izham. — Malay Mail
