AirAsia X says it had no intention to mislead on pricing after being fined in an Australian court for contravening the single pricing provision of the country’s consumer law.
The Malaysian low fares carrier was fined A$200,000 by a federal court in Melbourne.
Chief executive Azran Osman-Rani said the judgment “reflects that there was no intention to mislead at any time, and that no consumer was misled or had suffered any economic loss as a result of this inadvertence, and that AirAsia had been co-operative throughout”.
He added: “The fine of A$200,000 imposed as compared to the range of A$520,000-A$650,000 sought reflects the court’s acknowledgement of the lack of any intention to mislead on the part of AirAsia.
“Nevertheless AirAsia X understands the importance of providing consumers with ‘all-in’ pricing and we remain fully committed towards displaying all-in fares on our website. We wish to highlight that all of our advertising has always been on the basis of all-in fares which are inclusive of taxes and other mandatory charges.”
He explained: “These legal proceedings are related only to fare displays on the airasia.com website for a limited number of ‘Fly-Thru’ routes which were newly added to our network in 2011. The fares in question were manually entered and we took immediate steps to rectify this unintentional oversight, as soon as we were made aware of the same.
“The process of adding new routes and displaying fares on airasia.com has now been rectified and automated to prevent future recurrence.
“The airline notes the importance of all-inclusive pricing and of ensuring the accuracy of how the fare is prominently displayed.”