Introduction
In July 2019, the Kuala Lumpur High Court awarded summary
judgment for a combined sum exceeding RM40 million for unpaid
passenger service charges in the three civil suits brought by
Malaysia Airports (Sepang) Sdn Bhd ("MA Sepang") against
AirAsia Berhad and AirAsia X Berhad (collectively,
"AirAsia").
The recently released written grounds of judgment for this
matter has provided welcome clarification on several important
issues for providers of aviation services.
Facts
The civil suits were filed after AirAsia had refused to collect
from its passengers and pay to MA Sepang the newly revised
passenger service charges for long haul flights from klia2 which
had been increased and gazetted by the nation's economic
aviation regulator, the Malaysian Aviation Commission
("MAVCOM"), pursuant to its powers under the Malaysian
Aviation Commission Act 2015 ("MAVCOM Act"). This
non-payment was mainly due to AirAsia's contention that the
revised charge merely
