AirAsia Took my Boyfriend’s Passport and Detained him for NO Reason at Manila Airport–Missed Flights as a Result

By: Jenna Carr

The most bizarre and frustrating situation just occurred at the Manila airport. My boyfriend is flying home from Bali to Portugal, using three individually booked flights with different airlines. The first was an AirAsia flight from Bali to Manila, which he boarded in time and arrived in Manila at 3:30am this morning.

He’s pretty sensible and all of his flights had huge gaps in between in case any disaster occurred. His next flight Manila to London with Philippines airways was at 13:00–10 hours after he landed in Manila. At immigration they asked where he was going and he explained he had another flight to London in 10 hours, and he was going to wait in the airport. At this point they informed AirAsia staff who came and directed him to a “transfer room” and took his passport.

He explained the next flight wasn’t with AirAsia, it was with Philippines Airways, but they told him he could rest in the transfer room and they would wake him when it was time to transfer to the other terminal for check in of the London bound flight. He wakes at 10am and no one has talked to him or woke him up as promised. He tries to leave to find someone to speak with and security stop him saying he needs to stay in the transfer room as he can’t cross immigration without his passport.

He asks for them to get the AirAsia staff member and they keep saying “ok they are coming soon”… by 10:30 he is getting nervous – a staff member finally came and told him to wait longer as the transfer wasn’t ready. When he asked for his passport back they said they will keep it until the transfer. 11am comes and knowing the flight departs in two hours he starts asking more questions – every time he is told to wait a while longer, and told he couldn’t have his passport until he was transferred.

It was 12:00 when they finally came and said he needed to rush as the transfer wasn’t coming and he needed to pay 500 pesos for a taxi, as well as paying for the taxis journey back to terminal 3 (where he had been kept). By the time this had all happened and the taxi conned him out of his money, check in had closed and he wasn’t allowed to board the flight.

Now bear in mind he arrived at Manila airport at 3am, and he has missed a flight 10 hours later. We don’t have a lot of money, this trip has really rinsed us dry. So paying for another flight isn’t possible without having to ask family for money. He will now miss his flight to Faro, we need to work out how to buy him another flight to London which is going to be ridiculously expensive, and then another to Faro.

Why was he put into the transfer room in the first place? Why did they take his passport? I have never experienced this in my life and I travel often. They wouldn’t take any responsibility for the missed flight and wouldn’t even write him a letter to show to his travel insurance company. As he tried to complain they asked him for more ID, which they kept for another two hours – then eventually said the supervisor wasn’t available and they couldn’t help with another flight as they are only a point to point carrier…

What sort of rights does he have in this situation? I’m still in Bali unable to help, it’s his first time travelling and now he is stuck in Manila without money. I can transfer him a bit but his bank takes a few days so that is no use right now. He’d only taken enough Peso to pay the airport fee to leave – and the con man taxi took most of that.

AirAsia support on Twitter aren’t helping and I don’t know where else to turn.

**Update

My boyfriend has boarded a very expensive and long flight back home paid for by my very kind brother. That doesn’t change the fact we have been screwed over and no help as been offered by anyone. We have no explanation as to why they kept him in the room, why they took his passport, and why they kept him right up until the last minute when it became too late to board his flight. No apology, no explanation, no compensation for the huge amount of money and time we’ve lost…