AirAsia drops fuel surcharge for all flights

In line with declining global oil prices, AirAsia will abolish fuel surcharge effective January 26, 2015 across all of its airlines, including its low-cost longhaul affiliates AirAsia X, Thai AirAsia X and Indonesia AirAsia X.

Plummeting aviation fuel prices had earlier promoted Japan’s two main airlines, All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines, to trim their ticket surcharges too.

“We are a high-value, low-fare airline and we will continue to strive to make flying as affordable as possible,” commented AirAsia’s group CEO, Tony Fernandes.

“This decision has been made in November 2014, which was in line with declining global oil prices. However, we are only able to implement it now, but we believe removing fuel surcharge and reducing travel costs will be a huge boost to the tourism industry. This will be a plus point for consumers, but the economy will also benefit from this as the tourism industry is a great job creator.”

With the removal of fuel surcharge from its fares, AirAsia’s domestic flights are expected to begin from as low as RM19 (US$5.30) one-way all-in and international flights from RM49 one-way all-in.

AirAsia was the first airline to abolish fuel surcharge for all its domestic and international flights back in 2008, however rocketing fuel prices forced the airline to re-introduce fuel surcharge into its fares in 2011.

-TTG Asia.