KUALA LUMPUR (March 27): AirAsia X Bhd (AAX) said today the overdue payments claimed by the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) are due to long outstanding payments that were not made by its former local partner in Nepal – Incentive Group of Companies (IGC) – and this was only communicated to AAX last year by CAAN.

"(We are) current on all payments to CAAN in respect of our operations into Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) in Kathmandu, Nepal and reiterate that we have consistently made regular payments to CAAN," an AAX spokesperson said in a statement today.

"AAX is and has been cooperating fully with CAAN and TIA with the aim of resolving this matter amicably. AAX supports any action that CAAN takes to resolve the matter directly with IGC, and the airline understands that a police report had been filed by CAAN against IGC," the spokesperson added.

The airline was commenting on a report by The Himalayan Times yesterday, which quoted Shashi Lal Pradhan, deputy manager of the Civil Aviation Office at TIA, as saying that a month ago, AirAsia had written a letter to TIA seeking a waiver of around Rs 130 million in late fees. However, TIA had refused to do so.

The report also quoted TIA as saying that AirAsia is still to pay around Rs 194 million dues, of which around Rs 130 million is related to late fees.

In today's statement, the AAX spokesperson clarified that the entities involved in this matter is AAX or AirAsia X Malaysia, and not its parent AirAsia Group Bhd or AirAsia Bhd as reported.

"In the spirit of resolving the issue amicably with CAAN, AAX had in good faith remitted additional payments on top of the current monthly charges to CAAN, which resulted in additional operational costs and resources on the part of AAX," the AAX spokesperson said.

AAX had announced on Aug 15 last year that it was suspending its four times weekly direct services between Kuala Lumpur and Kathmandu, Nepal, from Oct 13, 2018, as part of its network restructuring plan aimed at improving operational efficiency and will redeploy resources (aircraft) to meet network demand, which is standard business practice.

"The decision by the airline to suspend services from mid October is unrelated to the above mentioned situation," said the AAX spokesperson.

At 4.41pm, AAX shares were unchanged at 25 sen, with 1.19 million shares done, bringing a market capitalisation of RM1.04 billion.