BA website fails to cope with rush to book cheap tickets
British Airways has come under fire from customers who failed to buy seats in a special centenary sale because the airline’s website failed to cope.
Others said they got to the very final stages of booking the £100 long-haul flights yesterday only to get an error message.
Many took to social media to air their frustrations, believing the website had crashed.
BA customer services staff responded to a number of complaints, insisting its IT department was prepared for a rush of bookings and was ready to deal with any common faults.
But they admitted to customers: "Not all website faults can be foreseen unfortunately, and it’s very disappointing this affected you today.
"I know it’s frustrating but the influx of customers trying to get on take advantage, can sometimes result in the site being overloaded."
The sale, marking the airline’s 100th anniversary, offered long-haul flights for £100 each-way as part of a return trip.
The offer ran across four days this week, with 100 seats up for grabs each day.
Customers were invited to visit the site at midday on each day to reveal the two destinations on offer on a first-come, first-served basis.
Customers said they had got to the very last stages of booking £100 flights to Rio or Barbados when the website went down.
BA denied the website crashed but said that due to such high volumes of traffic, a very small number of people couldn’t immediately access the page and were asked to refresh.
A spokeswoman added: "We’re pleased that hundreds of customers were able to take advantage of our centenary sale this week – and we’re sorry to hear that a handful of customers could not immediately access the page due to high volumes of traffic. Customers still have the opportunity to book great deals as the sale continues till the end of the month."
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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