Transport Minister Anthony Loke has extended an open invitation to his predecessor Wee Ka Siong to send off passengers of a fixed-fare flight on Thursday (April 20).
This comes after Wee complained about the exorbitant flight tickets from Kuala Lumpur to Tawau, Sabah, during the Hari Raya season.
“I want to extend an open invitation to him (Wee) to send off passengers boarding the KL-Tawau flight on April 20.
“It is RM249 for all tickets (on the flight) with 185 passengers.
“If he does not believe such a low fare, I invite him to interview each and every passenger on Thursday night,” he said.
Wee had earlier claimed that ticket prices from Kuala Lumpur to Tawau from MAS reached a whopping RM3,138 on April 20.
To back his claims, Wee had referred to the AirAsia Super App which displayed the exorbitant ticket prices for MAS flights.
At a press conference in Putrajaya today, Loke reiterated that the ticket prices Wee had cited were not for the economy class but for the business class.
However, Loke took a swipe at the former minister for spreading such information instead of advising the public to check multiple sources before purchasing flight tickets to get the cheapest prices.
“The prices (Wee has cited) should be for business class, but why should he point to that particular app (AirAsia)? As a responsible leader, he should educate the public to look for the cheapest prices and not score brownie points,” he said.
“This is the information that should be given by the former minister. Why would he keep saying (that the public should) check the AirAsia app for MAS tickets?
“I am telling the public to check multiple sources. If you want MAS tickets, go to the MAS app,” Loke added.
Checks by Malaysiakini on the AirAsia website yesterday, for the same direct route, showed RM3,138 for some of the flights on April 20, with RM2,222 being the lowest priced tickets. The prices are labelled for economy class.
However, when checked on the MAS website, it only showed results for business class tickets starting from RM2,863.37.
Loke stressed today that economy seats for MAS flights can range from RM209 to RM1,226, depending on which seats, with the maximum prices set at RM1,398. Prices for these seats do not include check-in luggage.
Marking up
He said that anyone who had paid above RM3,000 for an economy ticket to Tawau, as claimed by Wee, may report to the ministry to have the matter looked into.
The minister added that the Malaysian Aviation Commission (Mavcom) was also looking into methods to ensure different applications do not take advantage of marking up flight ticket prices.
On a separate issue, Loke revealed that MAS has filed an injunction against AirAsia for selling the former’s flight tickets on the latter’s platform.
The matter was communicated to Loke by Malaysia Airlines group CEO Izham Ismail.
Loke said that the injunction had not been granted but the case would be heard at court “in a few months”. - Mkini
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