Cathay caught again by rogue ticket prices on website

Airline again agrees to honour $16,000 tickets bought for a tenth of that price

Less than two weeks after saying it had a ticketing error that gave away premium seats at huge discounts, Cathay Pacific has done it again.

This time, some visitors to their booking site got lucky on flights from Europe to Hong Kong. The South China Morning Post reported that the carrier offered first-class seats from Portugal to Hong Kong at a tenth of its original price of $16,000 (€13,940).

Since Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd doesn't fly direct from Lisbon to Hong Kong, the tickets included a leg to London, Zurich or Frankfurt through partner airlines, the newspaper said.

Investigated

“We are aware of the error on some fares from Europe on our website because of an input issue,” a spokeswoman for Cathay said in a statement on Sunday, adding the sale of such fares was stopped immediately and is being investigated.

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“For the very small number of customers who have purchased these tickets, we look forward to welcoming you on board to enjoy our premium services.”

Around New Year’s Day, Cathay sold such discounted round-trip, business-class tickets from Vietnam to Canada and the US, and later said it would honour the fares. – Bloomberg