Aer Lingus has blamed a computer fault on its website for a €30 rise in "sale" fares to New York yesterday morning.
Fares to New York increased from €159 one-way, excluding taxes, charges and fuel surcharge, to €189 for a time yesterday, just as the airline was beginning a sales promotion and hours after it reduced its long-haul fuel surcharge by €10.
The price rise was spotted by a customer who contacted The Irish Timesclaiming the airline was increasing fare prices to compensate for the 25 per cent drop in fuel surcharge.
However, an Aer Lingus spokesman emphatically rejected this claim and said anyone who booked the inflated €189 fare yesterday morning would get a refund.
"The aerlingus.com website developed a technical problem when uploading new transatlantic sale fares to the website," the spokesman said. "The fault only affected the New York route and did not affect any of our other long haul routes including, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and Dubai."
The fault lasted for two hours before it was rectified, he said. The spokesman admitted the timing of the "glitch", which happened just as the airline was publicising the reduction in fuel surcharge, was not the best. Yesterday it ran newspaper advertisements for a transatlantic seat sale running to the end of May.
Julie O'Dea, from Dublin, told The Irish Timesshe discovered when researching a family holiday that the price of travelling to New York in August increased from €199 on Monday to €253 yesterday. For her group of three adults and one child, this would increase the total cost of travel by over €300. Even after the computer fault was fixed, the fare remained at €253.
However, the Aer Lingus spokesman said the increase in Ms O'Dea's fare was "all down to availability". The allocation of €199 seats on the flight she intended to book had been used and the next highest fare was now the cheapest available.