GE14 | Airline Cathay Pacific’s move to waive rebooking fees for flight tickets booked on polling day of the 14th general election has courted a backhanded compliment from Deputy Home Minister Nur Jazlan Mohamed, who commented if effecting “regime change” was the intended outcome. 

Taking to micro-blogging site Twitter, he retweeted an article from The Malaysian Insight on the airline’s latest move and appeared to agree with it before questioning its motives.

“Wow. Good marketing move by them.

“Didn’t know that regime change is part of their business plan,” he said through his official Twitter handle @NurJazlan this afternoon.

Nur Jazlan’s comments were swiftly rebutted by DAP lawmaker Liew Chin Tong, who accused the former of being a purveyor of “fake news”.

“Why is the deputy minister jumping at a commercial decision and trying to suggest that this promotion has political motives?

“Who is purveying fake news now?” tweeted the Kluang MP.

Yesterday, the Hong Kong-based airline announced that it will be offering Malaysian citizens the option to rebook and reroute their flights for free in light of the looming GE14.

“If the election date falls within the passenger's inbound or outbound travel date, one change is permitted for all tickets, including those with restrictions on the date change,” it said.

Passengers will also be allowed to delay their travel dates up to two months from the original date of travel, Cathay Pacific added.

To qualify for the fee waiver, passengers need to make their flight ticket changes within a week of the announcement of the GE14 date.

However, the waiver is not applicable to fare or tax differences should the new date fall into higher subclass or seasonality, with all surcharges to apply as per purchased flight ticket fare rules.

'MAS, AirAsia should do the same'

Meanwhile, former Bersih Shanghai coordinator Chew Chong Sin expressed his apprecation of Cathay Pacific’s gesture, and called on Malaysia Airlines and AirAsia to do the same by offering special airfare to Malaysians overseas who have to fly back to vote.

According to Chew, there are currently more than one million Malaysians residing overseas, who are unable to cast their vote in a reliable and confidential manner from their countries of residence.

Chew, who joined DAP this month, pointed out that the EC announced the new overseas postal vote in January, where voters are required to post their ballots back to Malaysia, with the envelope addressed to the returning officers of their constituencies.

“We believe many overseas Malaysians have no confidence in this procedure, because no one can assure that posted ballots are still intact and have not been tampered with before the returning officers bring the ballots for opening and counting on polling day.

“As such, the majority of overseas Malaysians prefer to go back to vote,” he said.