PUTRAJAYA (July 21): AirAsia Group Bhd, together with AirAsia X Bhd (AAX), have withdrawn their appeal against the High Court's dismissal of their judicial review application against the Malaysian Aviation Commission (Mavcom). 

The judicial review application was pertaining to Mavcom's purported refusal to mediate an ongoing dispute between the budget airline group and Malaysia Airports (Sepang) Sdn Bhd (MASSB), a subsidiary of Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB). 

Today was set as the Court of Appeal's hearing date for the appeal against the High Court's decision, but AirAsia withdrew the appeal before the hearing. 

"They (AirAsia) withdrew it not before the court, but by way of a notice of discontinuance yesterday," Eric Gabriel Gomez, a counsel from Messrs Skrine who acted for MASSB, told theedgemarkets.com today. 

Messrs Bodipalar Ponnudurai De Silva acted for AirAsia. 

The High Court dismissed AirAsia's judicial review application on June 25, 2019, with no order as to costs.

With the decision, the court agreed with the Attorney General's Chambers (AGC) — which was opposing the bid — that Mavcom had not decided on the MAHB-AirAsia dispute, but had merely deferred its decision. 

AirAsia filed the judicial review application on May 14 this year against Mavcom and MASSB. In the application, the budget airline group sought a certiorari order to quash Mavcom's decision not to rule on the group's dispute with MAHB, and a mandamus order to compel the commission to decide on the dispute.

AirAsia said Mavcom had a statutory duty to mediate the dispute and had erred in law by refusing to do so.

The civil suit in question arose in December 2018 after MAHB sued AirAsia Group and AAX for outstanding airport tax or passenger service charges (PSCs) amounting to RM36.12 million.

MASSB filed a lawsuit against AirAsia Group seeking RM9.4 million in unpaid PSCs, while AAX was served with a writ of summons of RM26.72 million by MASSB for PSC arrears. 

The PSC is paid by a departing passenger and collected by the airline upon purchase of tickets. It is later passed on to MAHB upon completion of the flight.

It was reported that the two airlines had only been collecting RM50 per passenger when the PSC was set at RM73 per passenger. As such, MAHB demanded that the airlines pay for the RM23 difference per passenger, which had not been collected.