Singapore influencer claims AirAsia requested her to pay $780 so her son might get on similar flight, Singapore Information

Travelling with a baby is already annoying sufficient however not when one has to cope with blended messages from the airline counter crew. 

Content material creator and mother-of-one Tina Amir posted a sequence of TikTok movies this week sharing her unpleasant experience whereas attempting to test into their AirAsia flight. 

Within the first video, Tina mentioned she had booked her flight to Bali in August when her boy was nonetheless 23 months previous — which meant that he was allowed to take a seat on the lap of an accompanying grownup.  

She was speculated to take the 1.40pm flight to Bali on Monday (Sept 12), and return to Singapore on Thursday.

On Monday, she mentioned that the AirAsia employees on the counter instructed her she didn’t want an additional seat although her son was already 24 months previous, having turned two on August 17.

In line with AirAsia’s web site, a child’s age on the date of departure will determine if the child is eligible for an infant fee – the airline considers any little one underneath the age of two years to be an toddler. 

https://www.tiktok.com/@tinadestruit/video/7142805533462957314?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1

All was going effectively till Tina realised that her passport had lower than six months’ validity. 

“The AirAsia stuff instructed me to move to ICA to try to get an extension slip for my passport, and that they might switch me to a 5pm flight as an alternative,” she instructed AsiaOne. 

She shortly headed straight for ICA and upon returning to the airport with the extension slip, she mentioned she was then instructed that there was a miscommunication – “there [was] no 5pm flight” and the following flight to Bali was at 10.50pm. 

Exasperated, she agreed to be placed on that flight and mentioned that she was instructed to pay one other $169, which included an toddler payment and a processing payment. 

Considering that the whole lot had been settled, Tina returned to the airport at 7pm later to test in, solely to come across extra issues. 

https://www.tiktok.com/@tinadestruit/video/7142821041511894274?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1&lang=en

This time, she mentioned that the AirAsia employees instructed her they’d “ignored” the truth that her son was not an toddler and required his personal seat.

What’s extra, to ensure that her to get her son onto the identical flight, she needed to pay a whopping $778. Tina didn’t clarify if this was for an grownup or a baby fare. 

A test on AirAsia’s web site confirmed {that a} return flight to Bali from Singapore is about $600 for an grownup. 

“I used to be actually in tears on the counter,” recalled Tina in her video. 

After quite a lot of “from side to side” with the counter employees, Tina instructed AsiaOne that her son was in a position to safe a seat on the identical flight — after she paid an extra cost of $311, on prime of the $169 she paid earlier.  

She additionally confirmed AsiaOne a duplicate of her last journey itinerary, which confirmed that her son was booked as an toddler. 

Tina instructed AsiaOne that the airline had emailed her providing her a $50 credit score for her subsequent flight, a gesture which she thought was “fairly ridiculous”.

A TikTok video posted yesterday confirmed her lastly on vacation in Bali.

AirAsia has but to reply to AsiaOne’s queries.

Tina’s video acquired a number of feedback from netizens who felt that Tina should not need to pay for the airline employees’s errors. 

“How is their employees’s mistake yours? Makes me so mad,” remarked one netizen. 

In June this yr, a household touring to Malaysia and Indonesia with AirAsia mentioned they needed to pay over 30.48 million Vietnamese dong (S$1,800) just to check in four bags. 

Rocio Ocampo made a TikTok documenting his household’s expertise with the price range airline, explaining that they’d racked up the exorbitant payment all as a result of they’d checked of their baggage at Hanoi Airport, as an alternative of pre-paying for them on-line. 

“It is like if a little bit child put up a lemonade stand and charged us $100 per lemonade,” commented Ocampo’s son, Knox. 

ALSO READ: Passengers stuck inside plane ‘for almost 30 minutes’ without electricity and air-conditioning at Changi Airport

claudiatan@asiaone.com