The airline’s website on Sunday morning (13 January) offered first class flights plying the Lisbon and Hong Kong route – with a partner airline working the connecting flight through London – for just US$1,512, reported the South China Morning Post.
Savvy consumers may not have believed their eyes as first class tickets were again sold at huge discounts, in what is Cathay Pacific Airways’ second ticketing glitch in under two weeks.
The airline’s website on Sunday morning (13 January) offered first class flights plying the Lisbon and Hong Kong route – with a partner airline working the connecting flight through London – for just US$1,512, reported the South China Morning Post.
A similar first class journey via Frankfurt would have cost 10 times the price at US$16,000.
Airline and travel blogs had a field day on New Year’s eve when it was first discovered the carrier had radically slashed the prices for first and business class tickets from Vietnam to Canada and the United States, going for as little as US$670. A typical round trip on first class would have cost US$16,000, and from US$4,000 on business class.
For the first boo boo, Cathay only responded publicly after two days, the spokesperson declining to reveal the exact number of tickets sold at the discounted price.
This second error has since been attributed to an “input issue”, a Cathay spokesperson sharing that the airline is “looking into the root cause of this incident both internally and externally with our vendors”.
The Hong Kong-based carrier will be honoring these cheap fares for the “very small number” of fortunate travellers, the spokesperson added, just as they did the first time. Cathay did not respond immediately to AFP's request for comment.
2018 was a tough year for Cathay Pacific Airways, who lost US$33 million in the first six months, as they struggled with the rise of mainland Chinese rivals offering competitive rates. In October, mayhem broke loose when Cathay admitted to a massive data breach – revealed only five months after hackers retrieved 9.4 million customers’ data, including credit card and passport details.