The carrier owes Rs 170 million to TIA in service charge and fines

Kathmandu, September 26

Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) has called on AirAsia X to clear its outstanding service charge within the next 10 days or face the music.

In view of Rs 170 million that the carrier owes to the TIA, the airport authority sent a letter on Tuesday urging AirAsia X to make the payment before October 5.

“AirAsia X has not heeded to our repeated calls to clear their dues,” said Raj Kumar Chhetri, general manager at TIA. “But we decided to

give them few more days in consideration of their request for additional time to clear their dues.”

At one point in time, AirAsia X owed TIA a whopping Rs 400 million — Rs 270 million in service fees and Rs 130 million in fines. Till date, it has managed to pay Rs 230 million in several instalments.

According to Chhetri, AirAsia has made a commitment to clear the remaining dues within the given deadline of October 5, failing which the carrier will not be allowed to operate in Nepal.

As per the Airport Service Charge Regulation, any airline that fails to pay its dues on time can be slapped with a penalty of five per cent for the next 15 days, 15 per cent for the period between 16 and 30 days of the due date and 30 per cent thereafter.

“Had it regularly cleared its dues, AirAsia X would not have had to pay so much money,” Chhetri informed.

On September 7, AirAsia had notified TIA that it was suspending its flights to Kathmandu from October 13 due to limited number of passengers. In making the announcement, the carrier had mentioned that the company was willing to resume its service to Kathmandu once the flow of passengers improved.

The number of outbound passengers to Malaysia has dropped significantly in the past few months after the government cracked down on certain companies that were overcharging Nepali migrants for health check-up services. Until then, Malaysia was one of the top labour destinations for Nepali migrant workers.