THE Malaysian Aviation Commission (Mavcom) has lodged a police report against AirAsia Group CEO Tony Fernandes over claims that the budget airline was ordered to cancel all 120 of its additional flights during the general election period.

Mavcom said the accusations were baseless and malicious, while refuting Fernandes’ claim that AirAsia staff were summoned to appear before the commission on the matter.

“The commission has never issued any directive to AirAsia or any other airline to reduce or cancel any flights where regulatory requirements are met,” it said in a statement today,

Mavcom said the airline had on April 13 and 18 applied to operate a total of 54 additional flights (27 return journeys with a maximum volume of 13,660 passengers) during the GE14 period. Mavcom said it approved the two applications on April 17 and 18.

“At 3.20pm on April 20, 2018 (Friday), the airline requested for an additional 86 flights (43 return journeys with a maximum volume of 15,480 passengers) to be operated during the GE14 period. 

“However, on April 23, 2018 (Monday) at 8.17am, the Commission received a revised flight application for 66 additional flights (33 return journeys with maximum volume of 12,274 passengers) for the period of May 6-13, 2018, from AirAsia superseding its earlier applications.

“In its email submission, AirAsia specified that its previous applications should be disregarded. The Commission took note of this revision and subsequently approved this revised request on the same day,” it said, adding that the commission had in fact approved all 66 additional flights which were applied for by AirAsia on 23 April 2018.

It said that on April 19 and 20, Mavcom executive chairman Abdullah Ahmad had sought clarification from all airlines that there was sufficient demand for the additional flights.

“The Commission further reiterates that it had not issued any directive to any airline to reduce or cancel any flights.

“Only AirAsia proceeded to reduce its application for extra flights while Firefly, Malaysia Airlines and Malindo Air maintained their requests,” it said.

Mavcom said including AirAsia’s, the Commission approved a total of 166 additional flights (83 return journeys with a maximum volume of 26,434 passengers) of various Malaysian-based airlines, as of April 24.

Fernandes on Saturday said Mavcom had ordered AirAsia to cancel all of its extra flights during the election period. He was responding to the furore over a video in which he showed support for Najib Razak and Barisan Nasional.

Fernandes said he had appeared in the video to placate the government as he had been under pressure from the prime minister’s office to remove AirAsia X chairman Rafidah Aziz, who was campaigning for Pakatan Harapan. He apologised for the “grave error in judgment”. – May 15, 2018.