Cebu Pacific suspends Christmas fare sale

UPDATE: Cebu Pacific resumes fare sale at Christmas noon

MANILA, Philippines (UPDATED 5:35 p.m.)— Budget carrier Cebu Pacific on Monday afternoon announced that it is suspending its Christmas fare sale after a glitch caused problems on its system.

The airline disclosed earlier Monday that it is experiencing a system downtime, which is affecting the booking channels, online check-in and airport operations.

The system downtime came hours after Cebu Pacific launched a seat sale with base fares of as low as P1 and no surcharge in all domestic and international destinations.

The travel period for the said sale was slated from July to Nov. 30, 2019.

The volume of people trying to avail of low-priced seats rendered the website inaccessible.

“We are still experiencing intermittent system connection at the airport. While we are using an alternate system of check-in and boarding, please expect slower turnaround times, as we exert all efforts to restore the system,” Cebu Pacific said.

“To give way for troubleshooting, we regret to inform patrons and passengers that we are suspending the on-going Piso/Seat Sale. Though the booking platform is not related to the airport process, we need to ensure our IT team remains focused on operations and the system restoration at the soonest possible time,” it added.

The budget carrier earlier apologized for the inconvenience the system downtime has caused.

Online users who were trying to avail of the seat sale were earlier greeted by a message from the airline explaining that a lot of visitors are accessing its website.

“We are managing the traffic in order to provide a fast and seamless booking experience for everyone,” the website’s advisory read.

Cebu Pacific said it will update its clients on developments on the system glitch.