Cathay Pacific, the leading airlines of Hong Kong, accidentally sold business and first-class tickets from Vietnam to North America at prices of the economy tickets on New Year’s Day. The tickets originally priced at $16,000 were sold at $675 for a premium round-trip journey.
One of the travel bloggers, Gary Leff, said that a premium round-trip ticket from Da Nang, Vietnam to New York is a steal at $675. Another blogger of One Mile at a Time wrote that A return trip from Hanoi to Vancouver in first-class will cost $988.
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The Cathay Pacific website stated that, a business-class return ticket to New York from Da Nang costs around $16,000 for travel in July and September, however, they have made a decision to honour the tickets sold.
Happy 2019 all, and to those who bought our good – VERY good surprise ‘special’ on New Year’s Day, yes – we made a mistake but we look forward to welcoming you on board with your ticket issued. Hope this will make your 2019 ‘special’ too!
.#promisemadepromisekept #lessonlearnt— Cathay Pacific (@cathaypacific) January 2, 2019
The mistake in the prices have resulted in a major trouble for the company owing to the reverse losses between the cut-throat competition between other budget Asian airlines.
The blunder happened after the computer system of the airline got hacked last year, revealing the personal data of over 9 million flyers and was regarded as the biggest data breach in the airline sector.
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At times, the reasons for the pricing errors are human or technical glitches in the computer system or at the time of currency conversion.
