Etihad Airways was forced to apologise on Wednesday night after a two-hour air fare sale was scuppered by website technical difficulties.
The sale, which promised discounts of up to 70 percent on fares from the UAE to destinations across Europe and the GCC, was scheduled to take place between 8-10pm.
But the airline, the national carrier of the UAE, was forced to tweet an apology to customers about a quarter of the way through the sale when the Etihad Airways website crashed.
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It said: "Really sorry about our website being down. Seems to have succumb to the huge load of traffic from the super sale. Please bear with us."
Later tweets apologised to customers who had been unable to book discounted flights with the Abu Dhabi airline due to the site's collapse.
"We apologise that not all of our customers were able to book on Etihad during our two-hour sale due to overwhelming demand. We hope to be back with another sale soon."
Dozens of would-be passengers also used the social media website to complain about the technical difficulties. One said: "Super sale is a failure for the reputation of an amazing airline."
Twitterer Dubai_CEOs said: "Dear Etihad, if you choose to promote a 2-hr sale, try to make sure your site can handle it."
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Jul 23, 2011 , United Kingdom
For 2 months I have been trying to book a flight from LHR to SEZ business class. The Seychelles and Mahe are not in the destination list. I have phoned and emailed them twice each but no response....oh well I will just go back to good ol' Emirates.
Jul 14, 2011 , United Arab Emirates
i accessed the site about 9:45. The system got stuck on a few occasions. The "super sale' was only valid on 4 routes, Milan, London, Paris and one other. the rates were not 70% cheaper !!! In my openion - this was just a HOAX !