Cathay Pacific Mistakenly Offers $16,000 First Class Tickets for $1,600, Will Still Honor Prices

The mishap occurred on Sunday when the airline sold a one-way first-class ticket on partner carriers from Lisbon to London, Zurich or Frankfurt with connecting Cathay Pacific flights to Hong Kong as the airline reportedly has no direct flights to Portugal, according to South China Morning Post.

A morning flight from Lisbon to Frankfurt followed by a midday flight on Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong still costs $16,000. However, the error affected a midday flight from Lisbon to London and a late afternoon first-class flight on Cathay, with a reduced ticket price of $1,512.

“We are aware of an error on some fares from Europe on our website because of an input issue. The sale of such fares was stopped immediately,” a spokeswoman from Cathay Pacific said in a statement. “We are looking into the root cause of this incident both internally and externally with our vendors.”

While errors such as this one are quite rare, recurring ones might indicate a much bigger issue, according to Civic Party member and commercial pilot, Jeremy Tam Man-ho.

“Human errors can happen, no matter how sophisticated a company is, but if the same kind of errors happen repeatedly in a short space of time, it may indicate a bigger problem,” he said.

A similar incident happened to the airline during New Year’s Day when an error gave passengers a hefty discount. Instead of canceling, Cathay Pacific held their end of the bargain and welcomed all those who bought the super cheap first-class tickets aboard the plane.

Featured Image via Wikimedia Commons / Frank Kovalchek (CC BY 2.0)