Bargain hunters overload Air NZ booking system

By CATHY ARONSON, transport reporter

Travellers throughout the world could not book on Air New Zealand yesterday after unprecedented demand for cheap fares caused its reservation system to crash.

Air NZ dropped tickets prices by up to 28 per cent for its new one-class no-meal domestic flights, in an effort to entice more travellers and fend off competition from Australian airlines Qantas and Virgin Blue.

While 30,000 New Zealand travellers struggled to get the cheap domestic flights on Air NZ's new online booking system, travel agents throughout the world could not book national or international flights for up to five hours.

By 9am Air NZ had already made its daily domestic sales of $1 million and by the end of the day it had quadrupled.

But by 9.30am its central reservation system, called Carina, crashed despite the airline doubling its capacity when the fares were announced on Wednesday.

Without Carina, travel agents, online customers and call centre staff could not find out how many seats and tickets were available and book flights.

Air NZ did not know how many international sales it lost yesterday, as 95 per cent are booked with agents.

Travel agents access reservations through Global Distribution Systems, GDS, which offers reservations from airlines throughout the world. It could only offer airlines other than Air NZ for half the trading day.

The three Global Distributors described the crash as highly rare for any airline in the world.

Galileo spokeswoman Celia Taylor said it would not have impacted on its sales, as customers would have booked with other airlines.

"They don't fall often. Unfortunately it's an incredibly bad day for Air New Zealand."

Amadeus chief executive Bill Lawler said Australian and New Zealand travel agents would have been the most affected.

"It's very unusual for any airline system to be down that long, so it would have been an inconvenience.

"Timing is everything - that would have been very unlucky for them today, the first day of their new fares."

Sabre Pacific managing director David Allen said some sales would have been lost but the majority of travellers would try again because the fares did not take effect until November 1.

New Zealand travel agents - angry the airline is axing its four per cent commission for domestic flights - claimed the limited access had not affected sales as many were promoting other airlines.

Air NZ spokesman Mark Champion said its record high sales and 30,000 visits to its website showed it had delivered what travellers wanted.

"Our customers have recognised that we are offering something really special.

"Not many businesses can quadruple their business in a day. That is a result we never would have been able to predict."

The airline doubled its reservation capacity again yesterday and expected the demand to continue.

nzherald.co.nz/aviation

nzherald.co.nz/travel