AirAsia to refund travellers wrongly charged departure tax

Air Asia has identified 9700 flyers who may have been incorrectly charged the $60.

The Australian Consumer and Competition Commission said Territorians who flew from Darwin to Bali on Air­Asia between December 2010 and September 2017, and travelled with a child under 12, were getting their $60 back.

AirAsia is issuing at least $500,000 in refunds.

All passengers leaving Australia are required to pay a Passenger Movement Charge of $60, however children under the age of 12 are exempt from the tax.

The NT News was alerted to the issue of overcharging in late September by Stuart Park resident Thomas Sawyer, who came across the discrepancy when he was booking flights to Bali for a family holiday.

At the time Mr Sawyer said he tried to contact AirAsia, only to be told to send them the details of his tickets.

“This is amazing news … it’s really good to hear, I am so pleased,” Mr Sawyer told the NT News yesterday.

“I’m particularly pleased because I spent 12 months trying to get people to fix this before I went to the NT News for help.

“I went to both local federal pollies Nigel Scullion and Luke Gosling’s offices and neither cared enough to do anything about it. I went to plenty of others as well with zilch outcome.

“I went to the NT News and AirAsia fixed the issue within hours of the story appearing.

“I like AirAsia and I just wanted the problem fixed.”

The ACCC is alerting affected travellers they could be entitled to a refund if they were incorrectly charged the $60 fee on their children’s tickets.

It is understood AirAsia has also started notifying by email those passengers eligible for a refund of the incorrectly applied Passenger Movement Charge.