Bkk-Del / Del-Bkk Air Asia Flights Terminated

[bangkokburning]

If you had purchased some BKK-DEL-BKK tickets at a rockin' good promotional rate lately (or even standard fare). I have some bad news. This route will terminate around mid March. Currently tickets are no longer being sold.

I am told my refund is coming back to me, they have my card details and my bank account. I have not recd email on the termination nor the refund (we did this by phone). It is possible they are informing people on a monthly basis, in order so as to hold on to the cash as long as possible. Information on this came to light on a Thai message board.

How a perfectly healthy airline can kill off a route because it has some hassles or is not profitable and not honoring tickets sold by flying passengers or shifting passengers to other airlines.

We bought great tickets and now informed they do not want to honor their sale. Scam, dishonest, very possibly. If AAs policy of rebooking was more flexible and more reasonable I might have some sympathy, it is not and I do not. AA has a very punishing rebooking procedure, I have personally tossed a number of tickets out as it was cheaper to simply rebook.

ATTN: THIS VERY MOMENT as I write this an SMS has come in, our Jun flight terminated. No mention abt the Jul return so I think this is automated and devised to retain cash it would appear.

Air Asia - it can be a good deal, but the business model is often frustrating as well as dishonest. It is certainly not honorable.

[4evermaat]

It happens. Perhaps we should wait until AA finalizes cancellation in writing.

"2nd best time to plant a tree is today." Sent from ThaiVisa app.

[bangkokburning]

I have seen the email posted on thai forum

We have contacted AA and they have taken my information and started refund process

You must have missed the point above - as I was writing this very post, AA SMS came in - CANCELLED

No, it does not happen from time to time, at least in the real world. A perfectly healhy airline cannot simply decide it does not want to honor the ticket - but will in its own good time, refund the money.

All the people with hotel bookings will actually lose money.

[siam2007]

ALL airlines do that !!! not just "Air Asia" !

If there is no sufficient demand, the route will be axed.

had a flight with a reputable Airline (MAS - 5-star ranking from Skytrax) from KUL to PVG only to learn just 3 weeks before the departure date that my daytime flight had been suspended, and I would have to take the nighttime-flight, arriving in PVG at an ungodly hour.

and now MAS is terminating its' services to Buenos Aires on short notice as well, even there were many tickets issued already ...

if the big legacy carriers do such thing, why budget-carriers are always being bashed for doing it the same way ?

That such cancellations in general are a nuisance is out of question.....

Oh, and did you see that one here in the Forum?

.

Edited February 1, 2012 by siam2007

[ricklev]

It will take months to get a refund if you get it at all. That's particularly annoying and AA's specialty.

[wpcoe]

I would wager a (small) bet that the Terms & Conditions of Carriage that you unwittingly agree to when buying a ticket covers their obligations (i.e. none) when a flight is cancelled.

LCCs (low cost carriers) keep their fares down by minimizing expenses at every corner, and one of them is that they do not usually have "interline agreements" with other airlines for baggage, ticketing and reservations. (This is why you can't check baggage through to your final destination if connecting between some airlines.) If a legacy carrier -- BA or TG, for example -- cancels a flight, they have interline agreements with most every other IATA carrier with procedures for handling operational problems like flight cancellations. Air Asia probably has no such arrangement. It's part of the "cheap fare" operation.

[bangkokburning]

Funds returned a few days ago. Less than three weeks.

Guess the free flight and the promo flight /s were too good to be true.

Offer a big loss leader and if you can't make any money on the route - cancel and not honor the route no problem! Guess I would not be in such a huff if these were not promo tix. Just seems like a hustle they have renigned on.