Beijing Court Penalizes Travel Agent Over Air Ticket Mix-up

Beijing Xicheng District Court has sentenced Beijing Golden Holiday Travel Service Ltd. to pay compensation to Zhejiang Yinhang Aviation Service Company due to the loss of passengers' air ticket issuance records.

According to local media, in May 2008 ZYASC sold and issued air tickets to five passengers who wanted to fly from Hangzhou to Harbin. But when the passengers took the air tickets to check in at the airport as scheduled they were told that they could not check in as the serial numbers of their ticket issuance were not available. After hearing the passengers' side of the story ZYASC had to re-issue air tickets for the passengers, which, according to ZYASC, caused it a loss of CNY5,700. ZYASC stated in the petition that it was BGHTSL that had deleted the record of the passengers' ticket booking via the aviation association's system and this led to the failure of the passengers' check-in with resultant losses.

On investigation the court found that it was BGHTSL that cancelled the passengers' ticket issuance series number, but considering that BGHTSL did not do so deliberately, the court merely sentenced it to compensate ZYASC for the actual loss incurred.