HONG KONG AIRLINES - $600 BUSINESS CLASS TICKETS they honour the fare, it’s the way that they decided to honour the fare, that’s caught everyone’s attention.” In fact, there was speculation that the $600 business class fare was a deliberate marketing ploy. For example, the God Save the Points blog points out that $600 isn’t so outOn August 16th, Hong Kong Airlines brief- landish bearing in mind Qatar Airways ly advertised some ludicrously cheap has previously offered business class business class fares from the US to the Far tickets for $550: East, in particular you could fly for under “Airlines have blurred the lines of what’s $600 from LA to Shanghai or Bangkok. clearly a mistake, and what’s a flash sale The fares were only available for a few designed to create buzz.” hours, before they were taken down, with Hong Kong Airlines saying it was an error. However, the airline said it would indeed honour the reservations of anyone who had purchased a ticket at this exceptionally low cost. That got the airline a lot of goodwill, as this isn’t always the case with error fares. For instance, in June, British Airways said it wouldn’t honour mistake fares to Dubai and Tel Aviv (though in fairness these Not so said George Liu, the airline’s CMO were for £1 + tax) on Twitter, who put it down to a genuine mistake. “We really screwed up”, but As SimpliFlying CEO Shashank Nigam “we are willing to pay a price to keep our said in a SimpliLive show, “not only did promises as a brand.”
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AIRLINE MARKETING MONTHLY 9/2018
