Airlink News

TRAVEL UTILIZING 4Z/749 TICKET STOCK

Airlink has extended and updated its Covid-19 Policy to assist our valued clients in navigating
this difficult time.

• Passengers with tickets commencing travel prior to 31 December 2021 will be permitted one free date change, subject to the same ticketed booking class being available. The free date change must fall within the ticket validity which has been extended to two years from the original date of issue. This is applicable to both regional and domestic tickets.
• Any difference in fare and taxes must be collected but the rebooking fee will be waivered.
• The Waiver authority must be endorsed on the new ticket and in the booking: WF20.4Z.10028 – PEN WAIVER DUE TO COVID19 (applicable to ticketing agents)
• For any date changes requested on sectors booked to travel after 31 December 2021, standard fare rules and change fees will apply.
• Airlink’s no-show policy will apply if bookings are not cancelled more than one hour prior to departure i.e. the applicable sectors will be forfeited.
• If an Airlink flight forms part of an itinerary issued on another Airline’s ticket stock, please refer to and abide by their respective policy.
• These rules relate to all Airlink tickets – published fares, net fares, group fares and deposits.
• This excludes tickets that have already utilized their free change authorized in Version 1 and 2.

Flight Cancellations

• Waivers will not be given for flight cancellations.
• All refund requests will be processed as per fare rules.
• Refund requests made on tickets that were reissued from SAA/083 ticket stock will incur a 13% interline service charge on the fare and YQ, in addition to any other applicable penalties as per fare rules. 
• Any schedule changes prior to 11 March 2020 are classified as changes to our network and a full refund may be requested. Any schedule changes/cancellation of flights from 11 March 2020 (the day the World Health Organisation declared COVID-19 a global pandemic) are considered force majeure and standard refund processes apply. This will remain in place until further notice. 
• Please note that due to the high volume of refund requests, refunds may take up to 4 months to 
  process. 

Name Changes

• Airlink will permit name changes (either due to incorrect spelling or a replacement name) at an 
  administrative cost of ZAR1150 inclusive of VAT, within the same booking class. Please note that the value of the admin fee will differ depending on the country in which the name change is initiated – rates can be found on our website www.flyairlink.com . This can only be processed through Airlink directly. 
  Any difference in fare and/or taxes must be collected. 
• Please note that name changes will only be permitted on wholly unutilized 749 issued tickets. 
• The second alternative to an incorrectly spelt name or full name change is the purchase of a new ticket in the same class of travel as the old ticket. The old ticket will be sent in for a refund, less the administrative fee of ZAR506.00 inclusive of VAT. Please note that the value of the admin fee will differ depending on the country in which the name change is initiated – rates can be found on our website www.flyairlink.com, listed under the refund policy.
• If you need to make use of this service, please contact +27 11 451 7300 or email:
   [email protected]

Travel Vouchers and Extension of Ticket Validity

• All unutilized tickets issued between 06 December 2019 and 31 December 2020 are eligible to further extend the validity of their ticket by an additional year to create a three-year validity period in total. Any tickets issued on /after 01 January 2021 will still be eligible for a two-year ticket validity, until further notice.
• The validity related to the third year can only be accomplished by converting the ticket to an Airlink travel voucher. Whilst these vouchers are still in the development stage, they will be available for use prior to the two-year expiry of the original ticket, i.e. the first batch of vouchers are due towards the end of 2021. 
• We strongly recommend that the conversion to travel vouchers, for the purposes of extending the validity, are not requested more than a month prior to the two-year expiry date of the original validity. This is to ensure that the maximum benefit of the additional validity is achieved. However, if a travel voucher is not requested prior to the expiration of the two-year validity, the original ticket will be deemed expired, and no further transportation permitted. 

 Please take note of the following Terms, Conditions, and benefits of the voucher system 

- Travel vouchers will be valid for one year/365 days. All travel needs to be completed within the 365 

days.

- The travel voucher will contain the full value of the original un-flown sectors. The value of the travel 

voucher can be used towards any Airlink flight on any route. Any difference in the total value of the 

new ticket versus the value on the travel voucher will need to be collected.

- Please note that the travel voucher is completely non-refundable. Any residual value will be forfeited

after the expiry date. However, this residual value can be utilized as part payment towards another 

ticket within the same validity period of the travel voucher.

- The value of the travel voucher may be gifted to someone else to utilize without incurring the cost 

of a name change. An admin fee for a name change will only be required if the new ticket issued 

from the travel voucher requires a new name. 

- The above Terms and Conditions are subject to change without prior notification. 

Summarized Policy 

Important Note

• Airlink’s updated Covid-19 memo supersedes specific elements within Airlink’s Conditions of Carriage as well as Airlink’s refund policy until such time as the World Health Organization (WHO) declares the pandemic over.
• Passengers are required to produce a printed and valid medical certificate in English with a negative Covid-19 PCR test result not older than 72 hours before arrival and departure to and from South Africa. The PCR test must match the name in the travel document. The onus is on the passenger to check the specific testing requirements for their destination, including transit countries and arrive at the airport with the appropriate printed travel documents.

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Visit our Travel Agent Helpline webpage here for more contact information.

Question

Will Airlink automatically reissue all the tickets or must I send a list of my bookings to Airlink?

• Answer - Airlink has the database of SA8/083 tickets issued in the period from 06 December 2019 onwards and will reissue according to a pre-determined process.

Question

What is the re-accommodation and reissue process?

• Answer - The processing of the re-accommodations and reissues will be divided into two categories. The first category applies to: -

1. Suspended SA8/083 tickets where passenger no-showed – refund on taxes only (as per fare rules).
2. Open SA8/083 tickets over the lockdown period that require re-accommodation.

Point 1 and 2 above relates to tickets issued from 06 December 2019 for travel between 06 December 2019 up to 10 June 2020. The bookings will be re-accommodated in sequential ticket number order onto fictitious flight numbers. Once all these reissues have been done, Airlink will send out a media request asking people who had bookings in that period to contact Airlink with details of their new dates. Please note that this does not apply to passengers who have no-showed on Airlink flights – these tickets will remain non-refundable. The definition of a no-show is a passenger who does not cancel his/her booking even though the flight is still operating.

The second category applies to: -

1.  Original SA8/083 tickets to be re-accommodated onto 4Z/749 tickets

Point 1 above relates to all tickets issued from 06 December 2019 for travel from 11 June 2020 onwards. The rebooking’s and reissues will be handled in date order and Airlink will get in touch with each passenger/agent, where contact details are available, to ascertain if they are still going to travel on the current dates or if they require a date change.

Question

How long will this rebooking process take?

• Answer - It is impossible to say but it could take months on the basis that there are tens of thousands of tickets to reissue. Airlink will process the bookings as fast as possible.

Question

There seems to be a discrepancy regarding the dates in the media release

• Answer - The heading and first paragraph of our most recent press release mentions “after the 06 December 2019”. It should read “from 06 December 2019”, in terms of defining the date period for these reissues.

Question

Why can Airlink not reissue tickets prior to 06 December 2019?

• Answer - Airlink was given authorization by SAA’s business rescue practitioners to reissue tickets booked from the 06 December only – this is the day after SAA went into business rescue. All tickets issued prior to this date fall outside the scope of the agreement and are subject to a moratorium in terms of SAA’s business rescue process. The ticket sale funds for all SA8 tickets reside with SAA, and therefore Airlink is unable to accept these tickets unless the associated funds are made available.

Question

What should we do with tickets issued prior to 06 December 2019?

• Answer - SAA has advised that they will issue vouchers to the value of those tickets for use towards any SAA designated future flight. This appears to be the only option right now, other than to wait and see what happens to SAA and the government guarantees that are meant to be in place to cover the value of all the tickets.

Question

Can agencies play any part in the re-issuing process?

• Answer - As much as Airlink would like Agencies to assist with rebooking and reissuing flights from 083 ticket stock to 749 ticket stock, this would be deemed a CIP Violation. Airlink has been given temporary permission to commit this violation in order to move the flights across but unfortunately this cannot be extended to operators and agents.

Question

Once the tickets have been reissued onto 4Z/749 stock, can we still make a date change?

• Answer - Yes, one free date change is permitted within 2 years of the original date of issue (the date of issue of the original SA8/083 ticket, not the new re-issued date on 4Z/749)

Question

When is the cut-off date to reissue my ticket with the new date?

• Answer - All date change re-issues must be completed prior to 31 December 2021, or earlier in the case of any bookings made between the 06 - 31 December 2019. As the extended ticket validity is two years from date of original issue, all travel must be completed prior to the last day of the validity.

Question

Will re-routings be permitted?

• Answer - Re-routings will be as per fare rules.

Question

Will the difference in fare and taxes be collected when rebooking?

• Answer - One free date change will be permitted within the 2-year ticket validity. When reissuing on the same routing and same booking class, the reissue will be at no ADC utilizing the applicable waiver auth (this will be done by Airlink). In the event that the same booking class is not available, the difference in fare and taxes must be collected but the rebooking fee will still be waived.

Please note that when Airlink reissues the ticket from SA8/083 to 4Z/749, this does not constitute utilization of the free change. This process is merely to get the booking across into the new system and onto the new code. The free date change is reserved for use by the passenger when deciding on a new date.

Question

What if the original ticket was issued prior to 06 December but reissued for another date after the 06 December 2019?

• Answer - The original date of issue precludes Airlink from reissuing the ticket onto 4Z/749.

Question

Once the tickets have been re-accommodated onto 4Z/749, will all future changes need to be handled by Airlink.

• Answer - Yes, Airlink will have control of the bookings due to the reissuing process.

Question

What will happen to the SSR’s and seats in our previous booking?

• Answer - Airlink will endeavour to try and replicate as many of the original requests as possible for all bookings.

Question

Should passengers decide not to travel, can they request a refund?

• Answer - Airlink will incur a 13% Interline Service Charge billed to Airlink for reissuing the tickets. Airlink will absorb these costs for all tickets that maintain their bookings and travel within the 2-year ticket validity. However, in the event of a refund, the interline service charge will be deducted from the base fare and YQ component of the ticket, plus the applicable cancellation fee will be applied as per the fare rules.

Question

What happens if my booking was cancelled due to a schedule change?

• Answer - Any Airlink schedule changes prior to 11 March 2020 are classified as changes to our network and a full refund may be requested. Any schedule changes/cancellations of flights from the 11 March 2020 (the day the world Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic) are considered force majeure and standard refund processes apply – refund as per fare rules. This will remain in place until such time as domestic, regional and international travel bans are lifted worldwide.

Question

How long can I expect my refund to take?

• Answer - Due to the vast volume of refund requests coming through, the processing time may take up to four months from date of submission. Every effort will be made to process refunds as quickly as possible.

Question

How can I go about requesting a refund?

• Answer - Please send your refund request to [email protected] along with the relevant documentation – please see below .

Question

How will I be refunded?

• Answer - Once a ticket has been reissued to 4Z/749, the original form of payment can no longer be accessed properly. With that in mind, all original tickets issued utilizing a credit card can only have their refund processed via EFT. Please send through a bank confirmation letter or bank statement, not older than 3 months, reflecting the name of the person who paid for the original ticket, account number (plus swift code if applicable), physical address of the bank, physical address of the account holder along with the ticket number, when requesting a refund.

Question

Will the new 4Z Tickets be seen in the original booking?

• Answer - In some instances both the old and new flights details will be seen in the original booking but due to the various reservation systems involved, this may not always be the case.

Question

What happens if I already have a voucher for SAA in exchange for my Airlink ticket but prefer to have my original Airlink flight instead?

• Answer - We are still waiting for a response from SAA regarding the possibility of voiding the voucher and permitting the original ticket to be reissued to the corresponding Airlink flight.

Question

What happens if I am waiting for a voucher from SAA and do not want my ticket on Airlink reissued?

• Answer - Please email [email protected] immediately and advise that you are waiting for a SAA voucher and do not want your ticket reissued onto an Airlink flight. Please note that there is no guarantee that Airlink can extract the booking in time, but will do our best.

Question

Are tickets transferrable to another passenger?

• Answer - Tickets are non-transferable.

Question

Are we guaranteed of having SA8 tickets booked after 06 December 2019 reissued onto 4Z/749 ticket stock?

• Answer - Airlink will continue to reissue tickets on the basis that the funds for these tickets are paid over. In the event that payment for the reissued tickets are no longer made, Airlink will have no choice but to suspend ticket reissues immediately.

Question

What types of tickets will be accommodated from SA8/083 to 4Z/749?

• Answer - All published fares, group fares and FIT fares.

Question

Are there any tickets that will not be re-accommodated from SA8/083 to 4Z/749?

• Answer - We are unable to accept any Industry (rebated), Agency or Voyager Redemption tickets for re-issuing

Question

What happens if my ticket is part of a multi-sector itinerary containing SAA flights issued on SA8/083?

• Answer -  All Airlink SA8 sectors will be removed from the original itinerary and reissued onto 4Z/749 flight numbers. The remaining itinerary will stay as booked.

Question

If I have already issued a new ticket on 4Z/749 in place of my old SA8 ticket, what happens to that old ticket now?

• Answer - In the event that you have already bought a new ticket that matches the old ticket in name and routing, please send both tickets to [email protected] who will verify them both and send the original ticket in for refund.

Question

When will Airlink commence operations again?

• Answer - At this stage the South African government has given no indication of when domestic, regional and international flights may recommence.

Question

What are the contact details to get in touch regarding rebooking’s or general queries?

• Answer - On account of the lockdown and suspension of air travel, Airlink only has skeleton staff working, largely on a remote basis. [email protected] or [email protected] can be contacted with any queries. Please note that due to excessive email volumes, the response may be delayed.

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