AirAsia says it has permanently withdrawn all ticket sales from Indonesian travel app Traveloka, effective yesterday, following weeks of allegations about unfair business practices by the startup unicorn.
In a press release issued yesterday, AirAsia said all flights from its network — not just AirAsia Indonesia — have been withdrawn from Traveloka after tickets for the Malaysia-based airline disappeared from the app without explanation for the second time in two weeks.
“The omission of our flights has certainly hurt cooperation between AirAsia and Traveloka. Traveloka has not acted in good faith. They have refused to provide an official explanation despite our repeated attempts to seek their clarification,” AirAsia Indonesia President Director Dendy Kurniawan said in the release.
“The exclusion of several AirAsia Indonesia flights by Traveloka is a clear display of preferential treatment and an act of favoritism. We observed through social media messages how customers who enquired about the unavailability of AirAsia flights were recommended by Traveloka to book with other airlines instead.”
AirAsia says its flights first disappeared from Traveloka between Feb 14-17, which the latter told customers was due to technical issues. The airline says their flights disappeared once again from the platform on March 2, allegedly without explanation once again.
Traveloka has not responded publicly to AirAsia’s move. In fact, as of this morning, AirAsia is still listed among its airline partners on its website, though we were not able to find any AirAsia tickets being sold through the online travel agent.
AirAsia also previously complained about their tickets similarly disappearing without explanation from Indonesian online travel agent Tiket.com over the same period, but has not announced any termination of its sales partnership with the app.
Malaysia-based AirAsia Group Bhd, of which AirAsia Indonesia is a subsidiary, posted its first quarterly loss since 2015 of US$97 million in Q4 2018 due to rising jet fuel costs. Meanwhile, Traveloka, one of the four Indonesian startups valued over US$1 billion, made its debut beyond Southeast Asia with a recent expansion to Australia.
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