Air New Zealand uses Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners on many of its international routes.
Air New Zealand uses Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners on many of its international routes.
Air New Zealand has accidentally sold 1800 ultra-low return airfares - including domestic fares for $8 and international business class fares to Australia for $97 - after travellers latched on to a glitch on one of its overseas websites.
The airline scrambled to temporarily close down its South Korean websiteon Thursday evening - but not before the 1800 airfares were sold through the portal.
“It would definitely be nice to fly business class for the first time,” said Auckland student Joey Wu, who on Thursday booked and paid for a $97 return business class airfare to Melbourne for late November.
“At this stage since I haven’t had any correspondence with Air NZ and my booking appears on their app. I believe it should be fine for me to go?”
Airfares between Auckland and Melbourne were being offered for as low as 11,400 Korean won - $13.70.
Air New Zealand said on Friday afternoon, however, that it was investigating an error that had shown domestic and short-haul flights on its South Korean website “at incorrect prices”.
“This resulted from a glitch in the currency conversion extension used on our South Korean storefront, showing fares for as low as $8,” said Air New Zealand chief customer and sales officer Leanne Geraghty.
Among cheap airfares sold were:
Auckland to Christchurch return for $8;
Queenstown to Gold Coast economy return for $17;
Melbourne to Queenstown economy return for $28;
Auckland to Rarotonga return in business for $93
Air NZ chief customer and sales officer Leanne Geraghty. Photo / Dean Purcell
“Just over 1800 bookings were made until we suspended the website to avoid any further purchases of these erroneous fares,” said Geraghty.
The airline said it had been made aware of the error on Thursday evening; most airfares were booked in a 90-minute period.
“As this was an error, we will refund customers who purchased tickets at the incorrect prices. We know this will be disappointing, so we’re offering them the opportunity to rebook the same flights at the lowest fare class available if they still wish to travel,” said Geraghty.
“We want to apologise for this genuine error in our system; our teams are working to understand the root cause and ensure this doesn’t occur again in the future.”
Air NZ closed down its South Korean website while it investigated the website pricing error.
Wu, a student studying medical imaging, said he had paid 80,000 Korean won ($97) for his business-class flight.
It appears the website should have been charging more like 800,000 Korean won.
“I found out the pricing when my friend messaged me to book my tickets to Melbourne ASAP,” Wu told the Herald.
“He’d been fidgeting with the regions to see the price differences and found the Korean region of Air NZ had significantly lower prices.
“I was planning on going to Melbourne at the end of this year to visit some friends who moved over there this year, and a couple of my high school mates.”
Air New Zealand has temporarily closed down its South Korean website while it investigates a pricing error. Photo / Dean Purcell
He had told other friends about the website prices, and they also bought tickets. “Economy tickets were being sold for $30 return and $100 for business class,” he said.
As of Friday morning, he said he had not heard from the airline.
“As for whether or not they should honour it, I’m not too fussed and I’m unsure about the legalities but it would definitely be nice to fly business class for the first time!”
Geraghty said customers would receive a cancellation notification via email on Friday evening. “If they wish to rebook with us at the entry-level rate, we ask that they contact our customer care team.”
Your consumer rights
While, on the face of it, these airfares are likely to have caused great excitement, consumer experts say Air New Zealand has a get-out-of-jail card.
“The Fair Trading Act prohibits misleading and deceptive conduct,” says Consumer communications and campaigns manager Jessica Walker.
“However, the act provides a defence to a business that has made a reasonable mistake. We think it’s unlikely that Air New Zealand would have to honour the prices, but it will be interesting to see what, if anything, Air New Zealand offers to people who thought they had snapped up the bargain of the century.”
Internationally, these types of fares are known as “mistake fares” and airlines, generally speaking, do not need to honour them.
“Mistake fares can happen for many reasons, but some of the common reasons are currency conversion errors with travel agencies that incorrectly convert the fare into the local currency or vice versa, as well as fat-finger errors from revenue management analysts who potentially miss a digit when inputting a fare or file a fare for business class at the price of economy,” Zach Griff, a senior reporter at The Points Guy website, told the Huffington Post earlier this year.
“Basically, an airline employee might accidentally leave off a zero or use the wrong fare code during the ticket pricing process ... ”
Katy Nastro, a spokeswoman for the flight alert service Going, told the website: “Airlines have no legal requirement to honour mistake fares, which can mean that your purchased ticket might not be worth a seat on that flight. Airlines have been known not to honour mistake fares in the past, and we estimate around 10% of mistake fares don’t get honoured.”
How Qantas responded
In August, Qantas inadvertently sold a range of international first-class airfares at low prices, due to a website error.
About 300 customers booked first-class return flights between Los Angeles and Sydney for less than $A5000 ($5450) for January 2025.
A Qantas spokeswoman said the airfares were caused by a system-generated error.
“Unfortunately, this is a case where the fare was actually too good to be true,” the spokeswoman said. “As a gesture of goodwill, we’re rebooking customers in business class at no additional cost. Customers also have the option of a full refund.”
Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand’s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor
