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AirAsia withdraws flights from Traveloka

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JAKARTA, 5 March 2019: AirAsia Group has permanently withdrawn sales of all its fares on the online travel agency platform Traveloka.

In a statement 4 March, the group said the withdrawal of its fare inventory covered all routes across the entire AirAsia network.

The withdrawal of flight information and fares followed an unexplained disappearance of AirAsia Indonesia’s flight inventory from Traveloka on two occasions in the past two weeks.

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,” Dendy concluded.

AirAsia advised passengers to book directly on its website or mobile app.

Vanishing fares
AirAsia’s flight inventory first vanished from Traveloka listings, 14 to 17 February, coinciding with AirAsia’s network-wide system upgrade on 16 February. In response to customer queries, Traveloka cited the 13-hour system downtime as the reason for the absence of AirAsia flights from its website.

However, AirAsia flights disappeared from Traveloka once again on 2 March, without any clarification, two weeks 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.”

Traveloka responds
Asked for a comment on AirAsia’s decision, Traveloka public relations director, Sufintri Rahayu, in an email communication to TTRweekly said: “As the largest travel and lifestyle technology company in Southeast Asia, we highly prioritise sustainable partnership with all the stakeholders, including our business partners.

“Therefore, Traveloka regrets the decision made by one of our flight partners, AirAsia, to withdraw ticket sales from our platform.

“As part of our commitment to provide the best services to our customers, we are striving to ensure our customers have the best travel and lifestyle experience in accessing an array of airlines that have been available.

“At the same time, we have reached out to our partner (AirAsia) since this weekend to open a dialogue that will provide the best solutions for all relevant parties.”

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