Qantas has promised hundreds of customers a refund or rebooking of their flights after the airline mistakenly sold first-class flights at heavily discounted prices.
On August 22, some first-class fares for flights between Australia and the United States were published online that were up to 85% cheaper than regular first-class fares.
The flights were listed for less than $5,000 round-trip, about $15,000 cheaper than usual. The prices were also about 65 percent cheaper than the business class fares offered.
About 300 customers booked within the eight hours in which the erroneously reduced flights were offered.
A Qantas spokesman said in a statement that this was “a case where the fare was actually too good to be true,” citing a coding error.
“As a sign of goodwill, we are rebooking customers into business class at no additional cost,” the spokesman said. “Customers also have the option of a full refund.”
One of these customers posted a message in an online forum that appeared to contain a response from Qantas customer service.
“We have noticed that your booking is affected by this error and are contacting you with an important update to your booking. We sincerely apologize for this error,” the message said.
Two months earlier, Qantas had fallen out of the rankings of the world’s 20 best airlines, coming in 24th place in Skytrax’s World Airline Awards this year. The airline was fined $100 million for allegedly selling flights that did not exist.
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In June, a Qantas spokesman said the airline had “listened to our customers and employees and acted on that feedback by already making significant investments.”
“We want our customers to feel the difference from the changes we have introduced. Over the past few months, we have seen an improvement in customer satisfaction,” the spokesman said.
