Technical problems scupper Etihad's super sale

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.

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."