Thai Air Asia "Slashes" Columbo Frequency

[Guest fountainhall]

One of my gripes with Air Asia (and its subsidiaries) is the way it cancels routes and frequencies at very short notice. It did it last year with the Taipei route. Now it's done it again. Having commenced a daily flight from BKK to Columbo on March 1st, just a few days ago it announced a reduction to just 3 flights a week - starting today! The reason?

 

lower-than-expected traffic demand

 

http://sundaytimes.lk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=20158:airasia-to-slash-flights-to-colombo&catid=77:news&Itemid=563

 

So if your are on a flight to or from Columbo, you'd better check if it's been cancelled. If so, you'll get a transfer to another day's flight or a full refund. Plus, of course, you'll have to pay a higher price for a new ticket on another airline!

[Rogie]

So if your are on a flight to or from Columbo, you'd better check if it's been cancelled. If so, you'll get a transfer to another day's flight or a full refund. Plus, of course, you'll have to pay a higher price for a new ticket on another airline! (my italics)

 

I do not see why that should be so if a passenger having booked is happy to switch to an Air Asia flight on a different day, and he does the same on his return. I agree if you go for the refund and still intend flying to Sri Lanka you'll probably end up paying more if you travel on a fully scheduled route.

[Guest]

Cancelling routes where demand is insufficient makes sense, however I don't think 12 days is reasonable notice. Surely one month would be more reasonable?

[Guest fountainhall]

I do not see why that should be so if a passenger having booked is happy to switch to an Air Asia flight on a different day, and he does the same on his return

 

And what happens if you have hotels pre-booked at non-refundable rates in Columbo - and perhaps also in Bangkok? You're stuffed with those lost/extra costs as well. That's precisely what happened when TAA cancelled my evening flights to/from Hanoi and unilaterally put me on the earlier 6:50am/9:15am flights. But I happened to be in Singapore at that time! I had the option of changing to the following day and reducing my short full 3-day holiday to just 1.5 days plus losing US$150 on a pre-paid hotel. If I had also switched to the return a day later, the extra costs would have been around $350. Even worse, at no time did TAA ever inform me of the changes! I found that out myself when I was checking their website. I eventually got them to confirm that they had tried to send me an sms which had failed to go through. Did they then try to phone or email me? No! Was I offered a refund? No!

 

12 days is wholly unreasonable! Even one month is going to leave a lot of passengers with problems. I fully accept that if those passengers are aware of the airline's terms and conditions, then I suppose they are prepared to take the risk. But how many people actually read all the small print prior to confirming their booking? I suspect not many.

[Guest fountainhall]

Oops, it happened again! Air Asia has now announced the withdrawal of its flights from Kuala Lumpur to Colombo as of 26 February. As announced on its website -
 

 

AirAsia will be withdrawing daily flights from Kuala Lumpur to Colombo, Sri Lanka effective 26 February 2013 as part of the commercial realignment of the airline.

Affected guests will be offered the following options:

1. Move their flights to an earlier date to or from Kuala Lumpur or Colombo
without any extra charges and subject to availability.

2. Be offered a credit shell for the value that they paid with a validity of 3 months

3. Full refund

 

"Commercial realignment" is of course merely a euphemism for "there isn't the demand, and we should not have been flying there in the first place!"

This time it seems there was at least 6 weeks notice provided. When it finally cancelled Bangkok/Columbo/Bangkok on October 1st last year, it seems to have been truer to form – by providing just 10 days notice.

http://airlineroute.net/2012/09/21/fd-bkkcmb-oct12cxld/

Needless to say, several websites have vitriolic posts from posters having booked 6 months ago who are now screwed by having to pay much higher fares on other airlines. I’ve said it before –

READ THE FINE PRINT BEFORE YOU BUY THE TICKET!