Loke should resign if he can't handle airline refunds

 

No transport minister in Malaysia can play an independent role if he is too close to the AirAsia group of companies, simply because the group commands such an extensive presence in the local and Southeast Asian low-cost airline arena.

But the re-appointed transport minister, DAP secretary-general Anthony Loke, shows no inclination to keep his distance from AirAsia, actually launching their cheap flight marketing campaign for the Chinese New Year holidays.

This prompted former DAP MP Wee Choo Keong to ask if Loke was AirAsia’s salesperson.

Furthermore at the same function, when asked a question about refunds of airfares for flights cancelled by airlines, a question which involves both AirAsia and its sister company AirAsia X, to the tune of at least RM1.4 billion ringgit, he deftly sidestepped the question.

Malaysiakini reported his reply as thus: “We have a system in place. We have an authority in charge of this. So, the Malaysia Aviation Commission (Mavcom) is the right channel and platform for them to lodge a complaint.

“The minister’s office is not a complaints bureau. I cannot handle every single complaint, so if there’s any specific complaint of course they can lodge it with Mavcom,” he said. You can watch the video here.

He had earlier instructed Batik Air to apologise for an unavoidable eight-hour delay.

“I have contacted the management of @malindoair… they will be contacting all affected passengers to apologise and take responsibility,” said Loke.

The difference in responses is stark. Why? He can spend several hours at the launch of a marketing effort by AirAsia but he has no time to take complaints involving as much as RM3 billion and ensure that Mavcom deals with them carefully?

Mavcom has not responded adequately to a litany of previous complaints. As the minister, Loke should be aware of this. All it takes is a call to Mavcom, a regulatory agency that comes under his ministry. But no, the ministry is not a complaints bureau. How crass!

RM3 billion

It’s a lot of money - for AirAsia and AirAsiaX, the amounts involved are at least RM1.43 billion. Include the other airlines, which similarly refuse refunds, and the amount could rise up to as high as RM3 billion perhaps.

Such a callous attitude by a newly appointed minister to the loss of money by the public to airlines is inexcusable. This is not the first time that Loke is plugging for AirAsia and skirting around issues.

On an AirAsia flight to Sibu On Feb 1, 2019, Loke during his first tenure as transport minister, gave a “special surprise” to AirAsia passengers.

He took the mic to say: “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. This is Flight AK9838. Welcome on board. This flight is bound for Sibu. While we are ready for departure, please get your seatbelts fastened, sit back, and relax. So we hope you have an enjoyable flight. Happy Chinese Year, everyone. Safe journey home to Sibu.”

He should have declined politely to speak to the public and maintained an arms-length relationship with AirAsia, with whom his links are a regulatory one, instead of cosying up to them. This is the video link.

The extract was contained in this article from Focus Malaysia titled ‘How Anthony Loke gifted Tony Fernandes the perfect takeoff’, which explains in detail how the effectiveness of Mavcom was undermined by a merger that Loke proposed, with another entity, the Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia.

If he is not in a position to be fair to the public over legitimate claims against airlines, he should resign as a minister or trade the portfolio with someone else if political expediency (how I hate this term!) still requires him to remain as a minister. This issue is serious enough to warrant the attention of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.

Using customers’ money to operate

As I explained in this article, four airlines in Malaysia contribute to this problem - besides AirAsia and AirAsiaX, there are Malaysia Airlines and Batik Air (previously Malindo).

AirAsiaX basically cancelled its advance sales obligations by including this in a debt-restructuring exercise which saw it making a loss of some RM33 billion (yes, the figure is right) and then writing it back after the restructuring.

Against Mavcom rulings, advance payments for tickets were classified as debt and similarly written down to a fraction of their value.

Despite this, airlines refuse to make refunds and put impossible demands for processing the applications for refunds and demand that customers pay the prevailing (higher) rates for future flights to the same destination, offering virtually no option for refunds.

They thus used customers’ money to finance their operations even when they did not perform the contracted services by cancelling flights.

For hundreds of thousands of passengers, this went on for years, leading to loss of use of substantial amounts of money saved for holidays which never materialised and forcing them to pay much higher prices for future flights.

Commentators have expressed opinions that such practices are against the law but successive governments have done nothing about it. Loke did nothing when he was transport minister for 22 months, and he is doing nothing now.

Dare we hope that the new Harapan-led unity government which is committed to annihilating such practices does something now to show that it is indeed walking the talk? And remove people, even ministers, who refuse to honour their commitments?

Or is the only recourse a class action suit which will also cite the Transport Ministry and Mavcom as a defendant for not exercising their proper role in defending customers’ rights? We wait with the proverbial bated breath. - Mkini

---

P GUNASEGARAM, a former editor at online and print news publications, and head of equity research, is an independent writer, analyst and consultant. He wishes Malaysiakini readers a happy, prosperous and fulfilling New Year.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.