Petition launched to gather passengers in class action suit against AirAsia

A petition to gather passengers with grievances against budget airline AirAsia for a class action compensation suit has been gaining support online with customers citing flight cancellations and unscheduled disruptions as the main cause of unhappiness.

The petition on change.org titled “AirAsia class action lawsuit for losses due to cancellations and changes of flights”, launched two weeks ago, had gained more than 700 signatures as of this afternoon.

“With many having prepaid for their non-flight travel expenses, much money has been lost due to these cancellations and reschedules,” it said.

“Most have not been refunded or have had to jump through many hurdles before they can even receive a portion of what they paid for their flight. When you factor in the losses from non-flight travel expenses together with flight expenses, it is only fair that AirAsia should be responsible for all these losses.”

AirAsia said today that it was committed to resolving all refund requests caused by the ongoing effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

It said it had already finalised over 99% of customer queries and would work towards progressively settling the remaining 0.8% in the coming months.

AirAsia was one of several airlines that came under fire during the recent festive season for flight delays and rescheduling issues which wreaked havoc on the plans of many passengers.

Disgruntled passengers have also been chasing the airline for refunds for flights cancelled due to pandemic restrictions as far back as two years ago.

Responding to the petition, Syeikh Mohd Syamil Mansor said he had booked six flights with AirAsia since the start of the pandemic, two of which were cancelled while the other four were rescheduled.

“[This caused] severe disruptions to my travel plans, costing me paid accommodations at my destination,” he said.

“I didn’t receive cash refunds for my two cancelled flights, only credit in an account which was also recently forcefully converted into a travel voucher limited to a very specific flight.”

Stacy Ng meanwhile said that nearly 80% of her itineraries had been changed, while Adam Mohd Ali said he was still waiting to be refunded for a flight cancelled in 2019.

MalaysiaNow reported on June 8 that AirAsia passengers still waiting for their refunds were planning to hold a protest outside the airline’s headquarters in Sepang, Selangor, next week.

“We have been left with no other choice as the airline company and authorities seem to be ignoring our complaints,” one of them, Teerathpal Singh, said.