Airline charges customers more than 35 times for the same ticket

Customers are furious after an airline company mistakenly over-charged them as much as 35 times in a website blunder that has cost travellers thousands of pounds.

US-based Southwest Airlines launched a Facebook promotion offering half-price tickets to celebrate achieving three million fans.

But the airline said that the "overwhelming" response meant that they were inundated with applications. According to their statement on the site, they faced "website performance issues" causing some customers to be charged more than once.

Posting on South West Facebook page, one customer said he received 36 ticket confirmations and was charged more than $7,000 . He then spent two hours on the phone to customer services, and was told that it would take seven to ten days to process returns.

Another customer said she was charged 39 times and faced $19,000 of charges.

Speaking to the AP, airline spokeswoman Ashley Sillon blamed a "technology glitch" for the overwhelming number of duplicate bilings to debit and credit cards.

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