System Error: 300 Passengers Buy Class One Aircraft Tickets For IDR 295 Million Only IDR 52 Million

Qantas illustration. (Wikimedia Commons/Aero Icarus)

JAKARTA - The system error makes first-class plane tickets for Qantas airlines from Australia to the United States, which usually costs up to $19,000, available at a price cut of up to 85 percent on Thursday in a short time.

Due to the coding error, around 300 lucky people were able to buy it on the airline's website for only $3,400 (IDR 52,810,160) per ticket before the error was corrected.

"Unfortunately, this is a case where ticket prices are actually too good to come true," Qantas said in a statement on Thursday.

Corrections were made. Instead of canceling tickets, Qantas said it would re-order business class tickets for customers "as a sign of goodwill" without additional fees. Alternatively, passengers who are dissatisfied with business classes can get full refunds.

To note, business class flight costs with Qantas between Australia and the United States are usually around $11,000.

Qantas' actions are a follow-up to similar mistakes that were handled differently by airlines last year.

Last August, Australian regulators accused Qantas of a lawsuit selling tickets for more than 8,000 flights the airline had canceled, affecting more than 86,000 passengers.

In May, Qantas agreed to pay nearly 80 million US dollars to settle the lawsuit, with more than 13 million US dollars of that amount given to affected customers.

The CEO, Vanessa Hudson, told CNN in June the company had "disappointed our customers," as well as its staff.

It is known that a number of airlines also made mistakes, selling premium tickets at very wrong prices, although some have chosen to respect them.

In 2019, Cathay Pacific offered first-class and business seats from Vietnam to North American cities for just $675 for a round trip.

The Hong Kong airline kept the deal, by tweeting #promisepromisekept and #lessonlearnt on its X account.

However, that's not always the case. In 2010, American Airlines refused to keep a first-class round ticket from the US to Australia, which is worth up to 20,000 US dollars sold at a price of $1,100. Instead, the airline offered a $200 voucher as compensation.

A year earlier, British Airways also failed to keep a flight ticket that was sold wrongly for $40 from North America to India, and offered a voucher worth 300 US dollars.