AirAsia to stop collecting ‘klia2 fee’, says CEO

AirAsia will stop collecting the RM3

KUALA LUMPUR: AirAsia will stop collecting the RM3 “klia2 fee” beginning “next week”, says AirAsia Group chief executive Tan Sri Tony Fernandes.

He announced this during a Facebook Live session with the public yesterday afternoon.

At the start of the session, he asserted that klia2 did not match his airline’s objective for air travel, which was primarily to lower costs in order to offer cheaper airfares.

“We are going to remove the klia2 fee next week, you’re the first to hear it. There will not be a klia2 fee any more,” Fernandes said.

AirAsia and Malaysia Airport Holdings Bhd (MAHB) are locked in a legal battle over the passenger service charge (PSC) at klia2 after the airline refused to collect the full amount of the RM73 that the airport operator imposed earlier this year.

Instead, AirAsia has been collecting the RM50 per pax that was the rate prior to the increase, as a way to object to the standardisation of the tax at both the KLIA and klia2.

AirAsia previously insisted that it was unfair to charge the same fee when one airport, KLIA, was vastly better equipped than the other.

Yesterday, Fernandes deemed the standardised fee “ridiculous” before saying AirAsia would go directly to MAHB to seek compensation for damages incurred by its aircraft as a result of the facilities there.

AirAsia planes have been damaged by the repeated earthworks on the runways at the airport, he said, before panning the camera used for the session to show excavators at the parking area.

MAHB is suing AirAsia over RM9.4mil in unpaid PSC while AAX was hit with a lawsuit seeking RM26.72mil for similar arrears.

The two entities also had a recent run-in when MAHB reported AirAsia CEO Riad Asmat to the police after he tweeted about the allegedly poor hygiene standards at klia2.

Fernandes also disclosed yesterday that MAHB has withdrawn the police report and opted not to answer a question about the cleanliness at the airport.