MSPeconomist

In general terms, the USA FAA is concerned with air safety regulations while the USA DOT handles consumer protection for airline passengers. If the India DGCA is being replaced by an FAA-type entity, how will handle consumer issues?

skywardhunter

As before. They won't.

rje444

Amazing.

I just managed to get AirAsia India to transfer the refund they owed me to my bank account.

And it only took 9 months of polite requests, cajoling, threats, tweets to their account and the CEO, and even emails to the Indian Minister of Tourism.

AirAsia made 27 promises to make that refund over those 9 months. Each time, after not receiving it I'd write to ask where is it? They would often ignore me.

In the end, only extreme action forced their hand.

But what about the thousands of other customers who don't know enough, or are too tired to pursue them so vigorously for their promised refunds, as documented in articles? I wish someone would write an article explicitly exposing AirAsia's unscrupulous practices and warn potential customers of the risk of doing business with AirAsia.

moondog

Air Asia is hardly unique in this regard.

rje444

I know people have many problems with airlines, but this seemed pretty simple. AirAsia cancelled the flight, the terms of the ticket said that in case of cancellation the cost would be refunded, and AirAsia even told me they owed me the refund. But they tried very hard not to ever pay it.

Do you know of other airlines as well established as AirAsia who do that? Because if you do, I'd like to know who they are, so I can avoid them!

percysmith

Well CoC of Scoot said they'll even keep your money even if *they* cancelled the flight (you'll be given travel vouchers for future travel with six months' validity). I think Scoot's worse (with AirAsia I can lodge a chargeback without my bank answering back).

moondog

Not explicitly for cancellations, but I've had refund issues (similar to yours) with the following companies:

-China Southern
-China Eastern
-Wait China
-Scoot
-most HNA Group airlines
-various travel agents

Obviously, my data set is limited to the airlines that I utilize, but singling out Air Asia seems silly to me.

rje444

Thanks for the additional sources of potential trouble.

But why do you think focusing on AirAsia is silly? After all, that is the subject of this thread.

Furthermore, AirAsia has an egregious record of frequently canceling flights and then refusing to refund the ticket price. I don't know how comparable in numbers this is to the other carriers you mention, but I do know that in Australia so many people have been affected that there have been articles about just this.

And also relevant is that because AirAsia flies so many passengers but does not honor their ticketing terms, a lot of people are potentially exposed to risk. After all, AirAsia is described as the largest low-cost carrier in Asia in terms of fleet size and the number of passengers carried. And if you eliminate the "low-cost" modifier and just rank it among Asian airlines, AirAsia is #7 in rank for size. That is bigger than Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, and Singapore Airlines (even when you include Scoot).

So all this makes AirAsia worth singling out for comment, in my opinion.

Ausriver

I've had problem with getting refund from MH. Supposed to be a full service carrier. Fare was the cheapest so only tax is refundable and just never happened. We've got better things to do and lesson learned.

Maybe u could ask for a credit instead of refund and u will see it in your account very soon

exwannabe

Not to go OT, but I have had something like 4-5 refunds in my entire life.

Are you a professional hurricane/typhone jumper or something :-)

Seriously though, I do agree that one needs to be a bit more careful in that neck of the woods, and this is not an A Asia specific issue.

Dr. HFH

What was the "extreme action"?