Air NZ cancels flights sold too cheaply
Friday, 26 January 2018
Travellers who booked flights with Air New Zealand have been told their bookings won't be honoured – because the airline sold the fares too cheaply.
On Tuesday, US time, fares for travel from cities in the United States to New Zealand were mistakenly made available through third-party websites and travel agents for about 10 per cent of their intended value. This meant that some one-way fares were available for travel from the United States, to New Zealand for about US$100 ($136.25).
Jennifer Lutz booked tickets on US travel site StudentUniverse and paid US$540 for flights from Atlanta to Sydney, then Auckland to Atlanta.
A representative of the site rang her on Friday to say Air New Zealand would not honour the booking.
One in our group has been cancelled. My wife and I still have payment pending and no cancellation email. Any sense in requesting some kind of voucher as compensation for cancellation? Would we contact AirNZ?
— Nathan Blair (@nathan5blair) January 25, 2018
She then rang the airline, where she was told that the flights had been mispriced due to human error and there had been hundreds of calls. She was told the prices were set too low. A meeting had been held and it was decided they would not be honoured, with no offer to rebook or to receive a discount. 'I was stunned… Can a company not honour their word to customers? The customer service agent I spoke with indicated that hundreds, if not thousands, of people would be affected, not just me.'
Passengers complained on Twitter. Some asked whether the airline would compensate them for other services they had booked around the now-cancelled flights, such as connecting flights and hotels.
Womp womp. Cheap flight to New Zealand got canceled. Except @AirNZ_NA seems to have left me with a one way flight from SFO-EWR on @United that I clearly can’t use, so…. pic.twitter.com/mDRhdJSPrJ
— Aaron (@adventurousness) January 25, 2018
Legally, in New Zealand, consumers cannot force companies to sell them goods or services at a price that was accidentally set too low.
An Air New Zealand spokeswoman said it apologised for the error.
'These fares were available at that price as a result of a genuine human error in the data entry process. They have been cancelled and customers will receive a full refund from their travel agent. The US Department of Transport regulates flights to and from the United States, and we are following their guidance on mistake fares.
She said the loading of 'mistake fares' was an occasional issue for all carriers given the manual processes involved.
'In addition to full refunds any legitimate out-of-pocket expenses that the customers may have incurred will also be reimbursed.'