El Al Airlines said it will honor all tickets purchased during a glitch that had thousands of round-trip tickets between the United States and Israel selling for as low as $330.
The airline also announced that those who purchased tickets Aug. 6 at the hugely discounted fare would be given the opportunity to convert their tickets to a direct flight provided by El Al for an additional $75 each way rather than fly with a codeshare partner with a connecting flight in Europe.
“Although a review of this occurrence has not been finalized, a decision was made to accommodate El Al passengers who purchased these low fares because we value our reputation of offering excellent customer service,” said Danny Saadon, El Al’s vice president of North America, in a statement released Aug 9.
A full refund without penalty also will be offered to passengers who wish to cancel their ticket.
The glitch was the result of a third party subcontracted by El Al to post the Israeli airline’s winter promotional fares online. Accord-ing to El Al, the subcontractor failed to add the fuel surcharge to the total price.
On Aug. 7, the day after the glitch set off a three-hour buying frenzy, an El Al spokesperson told the New York Jewish Week that the status of tickets purchased during the frenzy was “unclear.” The position was reinforced the next day by a follow-up statement posted to the company’s Twitter feed.
“Thanks for your patience,” the tweet read. “Details/decisions re incorrect fares that were briefly sold on Monday are not finalized.”
The wavering was in contrast to two separate Twitter posts Aug. 6 that pledged to honor the tickets.
“Once we said it, we may as well follow our word,” Saadon said, explaining that the latter Twitter posts contributed to the company’s ultimate decision.
The decision to honor the cheap tickets was “mainly to save face,” he said. “We’re talking about thousands of passengers. Most are customers anyway, they just took advantage of a ticket that was available at a low price. We’d rather keep them flying with El Al without disappointing them.”
To minimize exposure to similar glitches in the future, Saadon said that El Al will review fares before they are posted online and maintain a buffer of two hours before the process is finalized.