Technical glitch causes SIA to sell business tickets at economy price

Singapore Airlines flew into slight turbulence in the Australia market when its business class tickets were sold for economy price from last Saturday to Monday, out of the Australian market.First reported in the Australian press, tickets costing $SG6,615 were sold for as low as half the price. According to News Corp Australia Network, as many as 900 business class tickets to Europe were sold, flying from the Australian market.According to the article, SIA is refusing to pay the difference, asking that travel inform their clients of the issue and charge them the difference — which in some cases is as much as AU$5000. Travel agents who do not recover the money from clients have been told they will have to pay up themselves.A SIA spokesperson confirmed this to Marketing, saying that the company is taking immediate action to rectify this and is working with travel partners to ensure customers are notified and “have no disruption to travel plans”.“We have advised our travel agents of various options available to customers, including paying the difference to our lowest Business Class fare, travelling in Economy Class on the booked ticket, refunding the difference between the fare charged and our lead in Economy Class fares, or offering a full refund,” he said.SIA recently inked a three-year strategic marketing deal worth AU$12 million with Tourism Australia -  looking to push its business in the market.