airasia Superapp encourages airlines to work directly with its OTA platform for better efficiency and performance

KUALA LUMPUR, 19 April 2023 - airasia Superapp, one of the portfolio companies of Capital A wishes to clarify on the recent reports over its online travel agency (OTA) platform.

Since airasia Superapp was created in October 2020 as an online travel agency to drive tourism in Malaysia and promote new travel options for millions of people in Asean, it has developed many product lines, including its OTA platform offering flights from other airlines, hotel & accommodation, ride-hailing, digital travel retail & duty-free, community engagement and more.

Mohamad Hafidz Mohd Fadzil, acting CEO of airasia Superapp said, “Since AirAsia was founded as a low-cost airline, the aspiration has always been to create an inclusive travel product that goes beyond AirAsia's own offerings and allows people of Malaysia and Asean to travel beyond their regions’ network, truly embodying AirAsia’s famous tagline "Now Everyone Can Fly."

“We have world-renowned airline brands such as Etihad Airways, Turkish Airlines, All Nippon Airways, Air New Zealand, Citilink, KLM, Air France, Bangkok Airways and many others as our direct airline partners offering their flights on the airasia Superapp OTA platform. Our database of over 72 million, one of the largest of any platform, allows our airline partners to reach a wider audience. 

“The airasia Superapp’s OTA platform holds a Travel Agent License, and is also an IATA-accredited agent authorised to sell flights from any airline on its app and website. As an accredited OTA, airasia Superapp’s flight inventories come from both established partner aggregators as well as direct airline partners, a common OTA industry practice. 

“Other airlines’ flights contribute a small percentage of our platform’s revenue and to date, we have sold 1.72 million seats from more than 700 airlines that are available on our channel. As any accredited OTA in the market, we will continue to sell flights from any airlines, including those we do not have direct relationships with through our established partner aggregators and consolidators. 

“We wish to put on record that the Malaysia Airlines flight tickets displayed on the airasia Superapp were taken from inventories supplied by our established partner aggregators, and the flight fares and fare class (Economy or Business) information is supplied directly by our partner aggregators without any intervention from airasia Superapp. The same fare information was also displayed in other OTA platforms. 

“We would like to clarify that the legal action Malaysia Airlines has taken against us is premised on allegations of potential trademark infringement and passing off, and unrelated to the supply of inventory. We continue to call on MAS and other airlines to partner directly with the airasia Superapp to achieve better efficiency and performance, and will be happy to move our conversation forward on working together to offer Malaysians the best value when it comes to travel, and win together.”

The airasia Superapp which has become the fastest growing travel platform in Asean is also the first travel superapp in Malaysia with a vested interest to promote tourism and bring tourists into the region, on top of contributing significantly to the recovery of the travel and tourism industries in Malaysia and the region, post-COVID. 
It has recently announced a new leadership change with Mohamad Hafidz Mohd Fadzil being appointed acting CEO on 1 April. Among its shareholders include key e-commerce player in the region, Gojek. A new capital-raising exercise will also be announced soon.