Thai Airways in free flights blunder

By Michael Clarke

THAI Airways is refusing to honour bookings made on its website after £9 million worth of flights were given away for free following a pricing blunder.

Over 1,500 fares were booked after flights between Heathrow and Bangkok were offered for free on its website for a 24-hour period.

The majority of bookings were for the first class cabin, where return fares come in around £6,000.

The carrier sent confirmation emails to customers, who only paid around £100 tax, but withdrew the sales after realising its mistake.

An email sent to customers read: "On April 23 2003, the prices shown on Thai Airways International’s website for flights on the London to Bangkok route contained an error.”

It added: "Although you have sought to make a booking, I regret to inform you that the nature of this unfortunate but obvious mistake was such that Thai Airways International is unable to issue you with tickets.”

A Thai Airways spokeswoman said: "We can’t possibly honour these bookings because it was a genuine mistake. We realise some airlines have been offering free fares but these are marketed as such, while this was obviously a mistake.”