Japan Airlines (JAL) has scrapped its promotional air fare offer after a huge surge in website traffic causing the website to crash. Recently JAL garnered global attention for offering air fares for as low as $48 each. The deal looked too good to be true for the passengers, leading to crashing the website after noting a sharp rise in visitors.
“The problems began to occur on Wednesday evening, just before its 'JAL Smiles' promotion was due to launch at midnight on Thursday. We are currently investigating and working to restore the connection." Japan Airlines said in a statement.
The promotional offer included domestic on way fares as low as $48 each along with child fares at $36 on domestic routes from April 14 to June 30, with Thursday's sale covering April and May journeys.
The airline’s website starting experiencing problems for around 19 hours on Thursday. The connectivity was finally restored in the evening. JAL initially told the customers that it was working on restoring the issue, but cancelled the promotion altogether.
The JAL Smiles campaign had its own special website built which crashed on Thursday. However, the airline's regular website was still functional during this period, with passengers still able to book regular domestic and international fares up until April 11.