photo: RNZ / Nate MacKinnon
Air New Zealand has admitted it made a mistake when it tried to charge two American tourists $13,000 to change flights after one of them received a serious medical diagnosis.
Todd and Patricia Kerekes flew business class from New York to Auckland in January. Return tickets cost $37,500.
They intended to stay until April, but six weeks into their visit, Patricia was diagnosed with gallbladder cancer. Their surgeon advised them to go home immediately, so Todd contacted Air NZ to move their flights up.
“Right away on the first call I told them my wife was seriously ill and we were on holiday and had to go home,” the 60-year-old said. checkpoint.
“And it was a whole series of long pauses and I couldn’t tell if they were talking to colleagues or working on the computer or whatever. But I would go through a whole series of 15 to 30 minute hold periods and sometimes people would come back and basically tell me something I didn’t want to hear, like it was going to cost me NZ$13,000 to change my flight.”
Todd said he was “momentarily amazed,” saying the new seats were only about $100 more than what he had already paid.
“It was such a large amount that it didn’t seem like flights could go up that much.” What they charged me was four times the increase in the cost of the flights.’
In his four-hour effort to get a more reasonable price, Todd said he was interrupted three times, never offered any compassionate options and never once asked for documentation or proof of his wife’s diagnosis.
“They weren’t rude or unkind, but they just said, ‘Look, that’s the way it is and there’s nothing we can do about it.’ could be more useful.”
The most surprising thing was that everyone he had met so far in New Zealand had been so nice.
“I grew up in New York, outside of New York, and New Yorkers are unfriendly. We just tend to be rude. But Kiwis are downright nice to the point where people have argued with us that people aren’t really as nice as we thought they were…
“It’s not right by any standards and it’s definitely not right by Kiwi standards.”
“Did not live up to expectations”
Air NZ’s general manager of customer services Alicia Armstrong agreed. In a statement, she said Air NZ “takes pride in the care and attention we show to our customers”.
“It is clear that we did not live up to expectations and our compassionate care policy was not followed in this case. We have contacted Kerekes to apologize and issue a full refund for the additional costs incurred in changing their original flights.
“Our Compassionate Fares policy is in place to assist our customers in times of unexpected medical emergency or loss of a loved one to book a last minute flight or provide flexibility to easily make changes to existing bookings.
“Once again, we apologize for the way we handled this case and our thoughts are with Ms. Kerekesh at this time.”
Todd said Patricia, 75, only had about four months to live.
“I resent that those four hours were taken away from the time I would have spent [with] her and I don’t appreciate the hardships my wife had to go through for it.”
And he worried how people with no connection to New York could handle such a situation.
“Even though they sorted me out – and I appreciate that – what about the people who don’t go out with that ‘I’m not going to let you screw me’ like me?” And the people you don’t have the energy for because they’re the ones who are seriously ill or don’t have time to fix this?
“How many people are out there who don’t have the opportunities that I had and the resources that I had?”
The Kereke family flew home on February 26.
