RuAviation

Sergei Alexandrovsky found himself in the spotlight of the prosecutor’s office after mass cancellation of cheap tickets to Phuket. The deputy transport prosecutor responded to an appeal from one of the affected passengers by announcing that a submission had been made to the CEO of Aeroflot. The prosecutor’s office is considering the possibility of bringing the legal entity to administrative responsibility under part 1 of Article 14.8 of the Code of Administrative Offences.

In October, the airline started selling cheap tickets for flights to Thailand from Ekaterinburg. However, a few days later, buyers received messages about the cancellation of such tickets. Aeroflot explained this situation by a technical error, which led to the appearance of incorrect information on prices. The company emphasised that this was due to a violation of the established scheme by a particular employee.

As a result of such an error, Aeroflot could cancel more than 3 thousand air tickets, which were purchased at erroneously low fares on October 18. The company noted that such fares are economically unjustified and below the level of costs and profits, as well as below the prices set by competitors on this route. In a letter that Aeroflot sent to the Russian Consumers Union, the company explained that setting such low fares violated the law.

“The establishment of such fares by the carrier would mean a violation of the requirements of both antitrust and civil legislation (Clause 1 of Article 10 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation), in connection with which such fares could not be and were not established by Aeroflot,” the letter reads. The airline specified that the carrier cancelled the transportations purchased by mistake in order to avoid violation of antimonopoly legislation.

As compensation, passengers were given the right to use a coupon for a 30 per cent discount on the purchase of a ticket on the route from Russia to Phuket and back in economy class service, and miles were credited to the accounts of programme members.