ANA business class tickets cancelled after 'technical issue' sees fares heavily reduced

All Nippon Airways (ANA) has cancelled a batch of business class tickets to North America after the they were erroneously sold at a cheaper price, disappointing customers who managed to snap them up for just a few hundred dollars as opposed to its usual US$10,000 price tag.

In a statement released on its website, ANA acknowledged that an error on the ANA website was identified on April 17 related to a 'technical issue' with the currency conversion.

Don't miss: Japan Airlines ditches ticket promotion after demand crashes website

“Due to this error, some customers were able to purchase certain tickets at discounted amounts from standard rates,” it said before adding that the ANA Vietnam website was temporarily closed in order to address the issue.

“This is now fixed and was related to a technical error in the fare quote system provided by Amadeus, a travel technology provider,” it said.

While the airline did not reveal how many fare tickets were sold in this blunder, the heavily discounted price was up on the site for just over 12 hours. Most of the tickets sold were also for flights beginning in Jakarta, flying to Japan, New York and then back to Southeast Asian destinations such as Bali and Singapore, according to media reports. 

ANA said that it “truly regrets” that this issue occurred and “deeply apologised” to its customers, affirming that customer service is the airline’s top priority.

For affected customers, ANA said that it will cancel and fully refund all itineraries. It added that it will notify all customers and handle all procedure. Customers will not need to take additional steps. 

ANA's incident comes shortly after Japan Airlines (JAL) had to cancel a promotion it held last month discounting one-way domestic flights after an overwhelming demand crashed the airline's website.

 JAL had brought the prices of one-way domestic flights down to 6,600 yen (SG$66) in a promotion for the brand. However, it was forced to halt sales after the website crashed, according to a statement by the airline. It attempted to restore the connection before eventually cancelling the campaign altogether given that there was no hope of recovery to the website, according to its release. The airline then apologised for any inconveniences caused. 

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