SIA will honour Business Class tickets sold at Economy Class prices

SINGAPORE - National flag carrier Singapore Airlines (SIA) has said on Monday (Dec 8) that it will absorb the price difference of Business Class tickets mistakenly sold at Economy Class fares.

In a statement, the airline said: "To ensure no disruption to our customers' travel plans, Singapore Airlines wishes to advise that it will honour all affected bookings.

"Singapore Airlines will be contacting affected customers and travel agents to advise that their Business Class bookings will be honoured at the original fare purchased."

This decision is a turnaround move after the airline had earlier announced that it would not absorb the price difference. It had advised travel agents to tell customers to foot the ticket price difference or receive a refund.

According to News Corp Australia Network, the price difference could add up to AU$5,000 (S$5,500). In addition, travel agents who cannot recover the money from customers were told earlier by SIA to pay up the difference themselves.

SIA also said today that it is investigating the cause of the mix-up, which had caused tickets to be sold online at wrong fares for flights between Australia and Asia, including Europe on Dec 8. Between Nov 29 and Dec 1, the Business Class tickets, which originally cost $6,615, were sold for about half its original price at $3,860.

"Investigations continue to be carried out to determine the root cause of this issue," the airline said.

About 900 travellers bought the affected tickets. Apparently, the tickets had been wrongly loaded onto the global booking system used by travel agents and the tickets were sold under a booking class that was assigned to economy class.

Travel agent Flight Centre, which was the first to notice the error on Saturday (Nov 29), welcomed SIA's latest decision and described it as "fantastic news", reported The Straits Times.

stephluo@sph.com.sg