Move to encourage more people to travel to and within Malaysia
KUALA LUMPUR: AirAsia Bhd will be removing the processing fee for Malaysia for bookings made from Oct 1, 2019 to keep air travel affordable for all.
The budget airline currently charges a processing fee for all payments made via debit or credit cards but is waived if passengers pay for their flight with BigPay, AirAsia’s e-wallet application.
The fee is a charge related to the ongoing administrative, maintenance and developmental costs of AirAsia’s online systems to ensure a secure and safe booking environment, which the airline will fully absorb going forward, it said in a statement here.
AirAsia’s processing fee starts at RM4 and can go up as high as RM16. The airline will also be removing processing fees for Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines by Dec 31.
“AirAsia is synonymous with affordable air travel, and by doing this, we will stay true to our promise — now everyone can fly.
“We feel this is especially relevant now with higher passenger service charges (PSC) at klia2.
Removal in line with BNM’s announcement
“We want to cut travel costs so our guests don’t suffer, and we believe every little helps,” said AirAsia Group president (Airlines) Bo Lingam.
With Visit Malaysia 2020 coming up next year, the airline hoped this would also encourage more people to travel to and within Malaysia.
“We want to make it an incredible success. This will be great for the tourism industry as well as the Malaysian economy, and it’s one of the ways we want to give back to the country,” said Bo Lingam.
The removal of the processing fees for card payments is in line with Bank Negara Malaysia’s announcement last year that merchants are not allowed to impose a surcharge on card payments.
According to Bank Negara, one of the reasons merchants impose the surcharge is to recover the costs incurred by them when they accept these payments.
