Singapore Airlines to honour business class seats sold wrongly at economy price

SINGAPORE: Singapore Airlines ( SIA) said today it will honour around 900 business class tickets that were mistakenly sold at economy rates due to a computer error, to ensure travellers' plans are not disrupted.

The tickets, involved flights between Singapore and European destinations, were sold by online and travel agents for $ 2909 instead of $ 7065, Australian media reported.

"To ensure no disruption to our customers' travel plans, Singapore Airlines wishes to advise that it will honour all affected bookings," Singapore's flagship carrier said.

"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," the Channel News Asia reported citing the statement of SIA.

The airline - rated as one of best airline service providers - said that it was investigating the cause of the erroneous sales involving 1,200 flight segments sold by Australian travel agents.

The move is a reversal of its earlier decision, when the airline said it would not absorb the price difference and advised customers to pay the fare difference or receive a refund, according to media reports.

"The decision was made to honour the bookings of affected customers to minimise any inconvenience and to enable them to continue with their travel as planned," the statement said.

On November 29, travel agents in Australia sold SIA Business Class tickets at Economy Class prices after the tickets were loaded wrongly onto a global booking system for travel agents, following the reassignment of a booking subclass. The error was rectified two days later.