Scandalous

Taken from the Telegraph:

I am a travel agent. Several weeks ago, I reserved a business-class ticket with Emirates from Manchester to Cape Town on behalf of a customer. Unfortunately I misspelt the surname, omitting a "u". The airline says that correcting this will cost £200. I have supported Emirates fully since it started flying from Manchester and have never had this problem before. Even so, it will not budge. I expected a £25 or £50 charge, but not £200.

Name and address supplied

Gill Charlton replies

Emirates says that the cost of correcting spelling mistakes varies from ticket to ticket. It appears to apply to all discounted fares, even business-class ones.

The airline confirms that, where a charge is made, it is between £75 and £200 per ticket. Some airlines even insist that customers buy a new ticket and make them go through the palaver of reclaiming the taxes back on the original ticket.

The Air Transport Users Council has been contacting airlines to persuade them to introduce a 24-hour cooling-off period for online reservations. Jet2, easyJet, Flybe, Virgin Atlantic and British Airways are among those to have introduced this measure, during which time tickets are re-issued free of charge.

This is getting ridiculous and the practice of charging for typos or errors should be outlawed.  Just accept the original ticket as it is, with the mistake and carry on as normal.  Why are we being held to ransom like this?  More so, why are they getting away with it?

This "cooling off" period needs to be mandatory for all carriers.