On Monday, thousands of people signed on to try their luck at winning some of the 9,800 tickets in a second giveaway round, but several were left disappointed and complained of long waits and error messages, causing Hong Kong Airlines’ booking website too slow to a crawl. Here’s all about the giveaway plane tickets and the ruckus it caused.
Hong Kong Airlines’ Website Slowed Down
The eager travellers competed for tickets to Seoul, Beijing, Nagoya, Sanya, Beijing, Hangzhou, and Bangkok. People reportedly attempted to join the online queue many times shortly after 10 am. But they were continuously redirected back to the carrier’s home page. Flight reservations repeatedly failed due to issues like website crashes and timeouts.
Hundreds of upset users posted screenshots of similar error messages and website breakdowns on the airline’s Facebook page. Sin Ying, a salesperson from Hong Kong, stated that she had accessed the website at 10 am to buy tickets to Bangkok or Nagoya but rapidly lost patience after being repeatedly kicked out of the queue.
She said that she gave up trying an hour into the offer because she had read about other people’s similar experiences online. She even remarked that she would rather draw from a lottery.
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Passengers Were Disappointment And Frustrated
Karin Wong, a fellow Hong Kong resident, stated that after battling error warnings all morning, she was surprised to discover an open flight and be greeted with a familiar image. She continued by stating that she went to the passenger information page and it said ‘no seats available’. According to her, it was a complete waste of time.
According to the airline, seats are available on a first-come, first-served basis. The marketing initiative is a part of the government’s “Hello Hong Kong” campaign, which will give away 80,000 free aeroplane tickets to entice locals to visit other countries in an effort to revive the city following three years of severe pandemic restrictions.
As part of the campaign, Hong Kong Airlines planned to give away 25,000 tickets across three rounds.
On July 24, 6,800 tickets for five destinations were offered in the first round.
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The airline indicated that the third round for the remaining 8,400 seats will have specifics that would be revealed later.
Cover Image Courtesy: Wikimedia & Hong Kong Airlines/ Website