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On Thursday Hong Kong Airlines business class tickets were available between the West Coast of America and Asia for just $600.

The airline was founded in 2006, has a fleet of 34 Airbus, with a further 36 on order. It is recognised as one of the top 20 airlines in the world by rating agency Skytrax. Skytrax rates the airline 4 out of 5 stars. While the airline currently flies passengers to 39 destinations, it also ferries freight to 7 destinations.

What Was The Sale?

On Thursday, passengers booking flights between the US mainland, and Asia were able to book return business class fares for under $600. One traveller was able to book return flights between Los Angeles (LAX) and Shanghai (PVG) for $561. Tickets for the same dates and routes are currently selling at $4,923. This marks an 877% increase. For comparison, the cheapest trip between these two destinations on these dates in business class is $2296 with Philippine Airlines.

Why Will It Be Honoured?

The simplest reason is likely good publicity. Sometimes when airlines make mistakes pricing flights, they will cancel any tickets bought at the wrong price and refund the passenger. In fact, it is estimated that 40% of mistake fare tickets are cancelled. While Hong Kong Airlines could have gone down this route, the story would have been considered to be a company making a mistake. Instead, by honouring the flights, the company has turned the story into “Hong Kong Airlines cares about its customers”.

So about that 600 USD business class transpacific fare 😳….we did it, we will honour it, and perhaps a few people will get to travel on our news business class product being introduced in September to LA. What’s not to like?✈️ — Hong Kong Airlines (@hkairlines) August 18, 2018

Stating “we did it, we will honour it”, the airline appears to make the error sound like a mistake by using a blushing emoji. However, It could also have been a clever publicity stunt by the airline. The sentence “perhaps a few people will get to travel on our new business class product” apparently hints that this could be the case.

There is a chance that Hong Kong Airlines is trying to deliberately introduce people to their business class product. Looking at the aforementioned LAX to PVG flights, an economy ticket costs $170 more than the business tickets were selling for. People who typically fly in economy could have bought a business ticket for less, while the airline could be hoping that a taste of business could entice them back. Likewise, the fare could attract customers who usually travel with another airline. This is because they may not have usually picked Hong Kong Airlines.

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Other Mistake Fare Tickets

As recently as July, British Airways was hit by the mistake fare problem. It took the approach of cancelling all of the affected bookings to Tel Aviv and Dubai. With return flights listed for £160, the airline took the decision to cancel the bookings rather than make a loss on them. A spokesperson for the airline said that errors occur “exceptionally rarely”. They added, “if they do occur, under contract law, there is no binding contract between the parties”. Other instances have seen tickets from America to Hawaii offered for just $5 each way.