KUALA LUMPUR: Low-cost carrier AirAsia has decided to permanently withdraw sales of its flights from online travel agent Traveloka.

In a statement issued from Jakarta, AirAsia said the withdrawal covered all flight routes across the AirAsia network.

 

This follows the unexplained disappearance of AirAsia Indonesia flights from Traveloka for the second time in the past two weeks. This was on Feb 14 to 17 and on March 2.

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 sales of all of its flights from Traveloka effective immediately.”

AirAsia said travellers who wished to purchase AirAsia flights were 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.”

AirAsia flights first disappeared from Traveloka on Feb 14 to 17, 2019, coinciding with AirAsia’s network-wide system upgrade on Feb 16, 2019. 

Traveloka had cited the 13-hour system downtime as the reason for AirAsia flights disappearing from their website in response to queries from customers.

However, AirAsia flights disappeared from Traveloka for a second time on March 2, without clarification, well after the successful system upgrade by AirAsia. 

“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,” Deny said.