KUALA LUMPUR: AirAsia has decided to permanently withdraw sale of its flights from online travel agent Traveloka.
The withdrawal covers all flight routes across the AirAsia network, following the unexplained disappearance of AirAsia Indonesia flights from Traveloka for the second time in the past two weeks, it said in a statement today.
AirAsia Indonesia president director Dendy Kurniawan said: “The omission of our flights has certainly hurt cooperation between AirAsia and Traveloka.
“Traveloka has not acted in good faith. They have refused to provide an official explanation despite our repeated attempts to seek their clarification.”
“The exclusion of several AirAsia Indonesia flights by Traveloka is a clear display of preferential treatment and an act of favouritism. We observed through social media messages how customers who enquired about the unavailability of AirAsia flights were recommended by Traveloka to book with other airlines instead.
“Therefore, in solidarity, AirAsia Group withdraws sale of all of its flights from Traveloka effective immediately.”
Travellers who wish to purchase AirAsia flights are advised to book directly from the airasia.com website or the AirAsia mobile app.
“Our airasia.com website and mobile app are a better alternative where travellers can book flights at the lowest fares directly from us and enjoy discounted hotel promotions,“ the statement added.
AirAsia flights first disappeared from Traveloka on Feb 14-17, 2019, coinciding with AirAsia’s network-wide system upgrade on Feb 16, 2019.
In response to queries from customers,Traveloka cited the 13-hour system downtime as the reason for AirAsia flights disappearing from their website.
However, AirAsia flights disappeared from Traveloka for a second time on March 2, 2019, without clarification, well after the successful system upgrade by AirAsia.
Dendy added: “Competition should be free and fair to ensure consumers benefit from the best deals. We should not let monopolies kill competition at the expense of the travelling public.” — Bernama
