After wife’s cancer diagnosis, Airlines charge Rs 6.5 Lakh for flight change

Patricia Kerekes was diagnosed with gallbladder cancer after which she and her partner asked their airlines for a flight change. The couple had a business class return ticket on Air New Zealand from New York to Auckland. However, Patricia was diagnosed with cancer six weeks into the trip.

Doctors told Patricia that she had only four months to live and asked her to return home immediately. Following this, the couple applied to reschedule the flight. But they didn’t know that a shocking surprise was on their way. The airlines reportedly charged Rs 6.5 lakh (37,500 New Zealand Dollars) for the rescheduling of the flight.

Her partner said, “Right away on the first call I told them my wife was gravely ill, and we were on holiday and we needed to go back home. And it was a whole series of long pauses, and I couldn’t tell whether they were conferring with co-workers or working at it on the computer, or what it was.”

He added, “But I would go through a whole series of 15- to 30-minute hold periods, and sometimes the people would come back and basically tell me something I didn’t want to hear like it was gonna cost me NZ$13,000 to change my flight.”

“The new seats were around $100 more expensive than what Todd had previously paid,” claiming he was “momentarily stupefied”.