NEWS FROM THE UAE
Source : The National

Black points traders ‘will be prosecuted’

DUBAI - FEB 01: Motorists who attempt to eliminate their black points by claiming someone else with a clean record was behind the wheel will face prosecution, a top traffic police officer has warned.

Major Gen Mohammad al Zafein, the director of the force’s traffic department, said police were prepared to review video evidence of the driver caught on camera if there was any suggestion that an attempt to avoid the penalty was being made.

“Perpetrators will be accused of swindling and referred to prosecution,” said Major al Zafein. “If we get suspicious we will go back to the violation footage to verify who was driving.”

Motorists in Dubai with lengthy violation records have admitted trading points with those with clean records to avoid the suspension of their driving licences.

Major al Zafein said it would not always be easy to catch such violations as it involved an agreement between two parties that could be hard to prove.

A black point market, where people with a clean traffic record are selling black points to those who are facing suspension of their driving licence, has emerged recently in Dubai.

The average price is Dh100 per black point. Others are taking black points from friends and family.

Although Major al Zafein said they had not come across cases of black points being sold he admitted that many people had their black points removed after other people said they were the ones driving their cars.

“Very often we have people asking to have their black points removed as some of their family members have been driving the cars,” he said.

The black points system was introduced across all emirates in January 2007.

More than 24 points in a year results in a three-month licence suspension, with the next 24 points bringing a six-month suspension and a third 24 bringing a year’s ban.

Drivers get four black points for not using a seat belt, and four for failing to leave a safe distance between cars. Overtaking on the hard shoulder earns six points.

Black points are eliminated a year from the date they are acquired.

The system gives offenders 30 days from the issuance of the fine to verify the offence at the traffic department. A person who claims that he was driving will sign an undertaking that he is the one that committed the violations. “This puts a legal liability on the person,” said Major al Zafein.

Dubai Police are giving offenders an opportunity to remove up to eight black points from their licence by attending a four-lecture course on road safety. They also have to pay Dh200 per two points to remove the points. However, drivers who have already acquired the 24 points cannot enrol in the course.

An Arab national, who spoke on condition of anonymity, had 15 points against her. “I heard that a person is interested in taking some black points in return of money so I got in contact with him and we agreed that I will pay him Dh100 per point. I know that I can have the point waived if I attend a course but this will save me money.”

A British expatriate who did not wish to be named, said he agreed to take over three black points as a favour for a friend. “We agreed that if for some reason I start getting close to the 24 points he may have to take some from me, but I am a very careful driver.”

No end in sight to the Maqta Bridge traffic jam, say police

ABU DHABI - FEB 01: A traffic jam that persisted for hours near the Maqta Bridge yesterday could return again for an “unspecified” period into the future, police said.

Motorists coming to Abu Dhabi across Maqta Bridge were stuck yesterday in traffic from early morning to about 11am, officials said, with tailbacks stretching off the island.

Traffic police said the jam was caused by road maintenance on the bridge, which is ongoing.

Motorists were advised to avoid driving during peak times or to take other roads.

“Road maintenance was the cause of the jam, and it will continue for awhile, but we don’t know until when exactly,” a Traffic Police operations officer said yesterday, adding: “The traffic jam will continue to happen in peak times, especially in the morning.”

The right lane on Maqta Bridge was closed yesterday.

Hisham al Sha’rawi, a 24-year-old Egyptian engineer, said that once he saw the traffic on the bridge, he took the Tarif-Abu Dhabi road to avoid the tail-back. He said he encountered the jam about 7.40am on his way from Dubai.

“I took the exit and went through Mussafah Bridge. There was no traffic on that one,” Mr al Sha’rawi said.

AirAsia X to pull out of Abu Dhabi

ABU DHABI - FEB 01: Potentially thousands of AirAsia X ticket-holders hoping to fly between the capital and Kuala Lumpur have been left in the lurch after the long-haul budget airline announced yesterday it was shutting down its Abu Dhabi service.

Barely five months after the carrier announced plans to establish Abu Dhabi as its base in the Middle East to launch onward flights to Europe, the long-haul arm of the low-cost carrier AirAsia began informing customers that flights up to October were cancelled.

The carrier called the move temporary and said it hoped to return to Abu Dhabi.

“We’re basically contacting all of our customers who have booked flights to basically say, in fact, we’ve suspended our service for commercial reasons,” said Azran Osman-Rani, the chief executive of AirAsia X.

Flights this month will be reduced from five to three a week, with the last trip scheduled on February 21. More than 30 weeks of flights until October will be cancelled. Ticket-holders on the Abu Dhabi-to-Kuala Lumpur route will be refunded, Mr Azran said.

The chief executive cited “underwhelming” demand for tickets, uneconomical aircraft and an aviation industry crippled by the financial crisis as reasons for the suspension of Abu Dhabi flights to and from Kuala Lumpur.

The airline employed a four-engine Airbus A340 on the route, with 256 seats in economy and 30 premium seats.

AirAsia X hopes to resume services in the future using a smaller, twin-engined A330 aircraft.

“We are not going to be flying, period, to Abu Dhabi until we figure out what’s the right strategy, the right hub, the right aircraft and we’ll probably come back again,” Mr Azran said.

AirAsia and its AirAsia X affiliate fly to more than 130 destinations in China, South East Asia and Australia from its base in the Malaysian capital.

Through its no-frills business model, AirAsia said it typically offered fares up to 60 per cent lower than its competition.

Abu Dhabi ticketholders such as Nafisa Robella were forced to scramble following the news.

Ms Robella and her parents were preparing to fly to Kuala Lumpur on February 20 when she was informed on Saturday that her flight was cancelled.

“I’ve booked up holiday packages from AirAsia tours and transfers and hotels,” she said. “I pre-booked it all, which was about Dh4,000 just for my parents.”

The freelance television producer, 28, said she did not have travel insurance and would likely not be refunded for her other travelbookings expenses. She has been told that her return flight may be cancelled as well. “I don’t think I can get my money back,” she said.

In Kuala Lumpur, the changes also ruined Adrianna Tan’s plans for a cheap trip to the Emirates. Ms Tan, 24, a photographer, was planning to purchase tickets on AirAsia X to attend a wedding in October.

“I usually used an AirAsia destination as a jumping-off point to somewhere else,” Ms Tan said last night. “I was going to plan maybe Yemen or Syria.”

“It’s going to make it harder to pop by the UAE.”

A spokesman for Abu Dhabi Airports Company said: “AirAsia X has confirmed to Abu Dhabi Airports Company [ADAC] that, from late February 2010, the airline will temporarily suspend its current, five-times-per-week, service to Abu Dhabi.

“ADAC looks forward to the airline recommencing its service to Abu Dhabi International Airport in the near future. ADAC would like to advise any passengers who feel they may be affected by the AirAsia X announcement to contact the airline directly for further details.”

The AirAsia X decision to stop serving Abu Dhabi comes as a surprise, as the airline as recently as November joined with local aviation and tourism officials to trumpet its Abu Dhabi flights as a new era of budget travel.

The decision to pull out after just a few months, when airlines typically require years to make a route profitable, added to the mystery.

Also, while it was pulling out of Abu Dhabi, the airline was growing elsewhere; last week it announced Mumbai and Delhi as new destinations planned for this year on A330 aircraft.

“What I understood was that their flights were full, so I don’t know what happened,” said Jim el Murr, the general manager of Salem Travel in Abu Dhabi. He said the airline could have reached out more to local travel agents; many UAE residents are still unable to purchase tickets online via credit card.

Mr Azran said the airline would continue to fly to Australia, China and London and that holiday-makers could still re-route their flights to those destinations at no extra cost.

Service charge that was hard to stomach

ABU DHABI - FEB 01: If you’re eating out today, check your bill. In most cases, the 10 per cent service charge should not be there.

A ban on service charges in non-tourist restaurants goes into effect today.

Restaurants in the capital said the Department of Economic Development (DED) had ordered the scrapping of the service charge at the beginning of January, with a month-long amnesty. Their time ran out yesterday.

“The Government gave us until the end of January. Tomorrow is the day. We have IT and accounting working on it as we speak,” the manager of a restaurant in Abu Dhabi, who asked to remain anonymous, said yesterday.

She said the measure would probably be a net positive for staff. “As a manager, I feel that it’s going to be a loss in revenue but the guest will be able to be more generous and the staff will receive more money.”

Other eateries confirmed that they received the notices and planned to comply with the ruling by today, with one saying that a DED inspector gave the management the notice in person after asking whether they included service charges in their bills.

Fareed al Zubi, the chief lawyer at the department, said the amnesty was likely given to allow cafes and restaurants to adjust their billing procedures and software.

With the end of the amnesty, the Abu Dhabi branch of the DED was going to send out inspectors to make sure that restaurants were not defying the ban, he said, but also noted that tip-offs from customers were going to help determine which restaurants the inspectors target.

Al Safadi, a restaurant in Dubai that continues to levy a service charge, also said it had been sent a letter by the emirate’s DED dated January 5 that gave them a month to remove the fee.

“They did this as if the service charge we take is an extra money that we charge the customer, so they considered it fraud, but this is actually from the cost of serving the customer,” said Fadel al Safadi, one of the chain’s managers.

Responses to the ban have been varied. Some restaurants have kept service charges on the bill for the time being. Others have raised their menu prices to compensate for the lack of a service charge, and some have simply removed the charge, which has never been legal, except at tourist restaurants.

Managers whose restaurants have not been levying a service fee questioned the need for the additional charge, claiming that the money rarely makes it into the hands of waiters.

“We consider it in the customer’s right whether to pay or not,” said Samir Abchee, the operations manager of Kabab-ji Restaurant in Dubai. “If you have all the costs of food on the bill I don’t see why you should charge extra.”

“I’ve been in the business for 10 years and if it’s in the bill, it goes to the restaurant” instead of staff, he said.

Sven Mostegl, a food and catering consultant based in Abu Dhabi, said restaurants were not likely to comply unless they faced punitive measures. Mr al Zubi said these would include fines as well as closures for repeat offenders.

In late December, Sultan bin Saeed al Mansouri, the Minister of Economy, declared service charges a violation of consumer protection laws.

Service charges are proscribed by law for restaurants with tourist licences, usually found at hotels or tourist attractions. The maximum allowed service charge is 10 per cent.

A fifth of service charge revenue must go directly to staff, but most restaurants that have been illegally levying the charge on customers did not pass on any of the money to waiters, which has outraged many customers.