Mavcom lodges police report against Tony Fernandes

PETALING JAYA: The Malaysian Aviation Commission (Mavcom) lodged a police report against Tan Sri Tony Fernandes (pix) for claiming the Commission had asked AirAsia to cancel all 120 additional flights it had applied for during the 14th General Election (GE14) period.
Macvcom said it had approved all 66 additional flights which were applied for by AirAsia on April 23.
The Commission said it had never issued any directive to AirAsia or any other airline to reduce or cancel any flights where regulatory requirements were met.
"All extra flight applications received by the Commission are done via the Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia.
"AirAsia on April 13 and April 18, requested for a total of 54 additional flights (27 return journeys with a maximum volume of 13,660 passengers) to be operated during the GE14 period, which Mavcom approved on April 17 and April 18 respectively," it said in a statement yesterday.
In describing the events Mavcom said on April 20 at 3.20pm AirAsia requested for an additional 86 flights (43 return journeys with a maximum volume of 15,480 passengers) to be operated during the GE14 period.
It said on April 23 at 8.17am, the Commission received a revised flight application for 66 additional flights (33 return journeys with maximum volume of 12,274 passengers) for the period of 6-13 May from AirAsia superseding its earlier applications.
The commission said in its e-mail submission, AirAsia specified that its previous applications should be disregarded and the Commission took note of this revision and subsequently approved this revised request on the same day.
"Inclusive of AirAsia, the Commission approved additional flight application of the various Malaysian-based airlines as of April 24 totalling 166 flights (83 return journeys with a maximum volume of 26,434 passengers)," it said.
Mavcom's executive chairman Gen. Tan Seri Abdullah Ahmad RMAF (Rtd) on April 19 and 20 had sough clarification with all airlines if there was sufficient demand for the additional flights requested.
It said the Commission had not issued any directive to any airline to reduce or cancel any flights.
Mavcom said only AirAsia requested to reduce its application for extra flights while Firefly, Malaysia Airlines and Malindo Air maintained their requests.
It said the Commission views Tony's accusation against Mavcom of informing AirAsia to cancel "120 extra flights which would have carried 26,000 people on top of our normal flights" as baseless and malicious.
Mavcom said it refutes Tony's statement that "within 24 hours", AirAsia staff were summoned by Mavcom.
It said between April 17-May 13 no AirAsia staff were summoned at all material times to appear before the Commission regarding this matter.
It said the Commission is mandated under the Malaysian Aviation Commission Act 2015 to act as an independent regulator for economic and commercial matters related to civil aviation in Malaysia.
When contacted, AirAsia said it would release a statement on the matter.