Check out Mango’s brilliant response to FlySafair’s R1 fiasco

If you’re going to put out an offer for R1 flights, you should probably make sure your website can stand up to the slew of people looking to buy said flights. That’s the lesson South African low-cost airline FlySafair learned the hard way today.

As part of its first birthday celebrations, FlySafair announced the release of 30 000 R1 tickets — including airport taxes — along any of its routes.

Within hours of the special going live though, tickets were only available on mobile as the main website had crashed. The mobile option soon followed suit, with users trying to access the site greeted by an error screen.

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The fiasco was apparently caused by an issue with its technical partner Radix.

In an official statement, fellow low-cost airline Mango said that the deal was a copy of its own campaigns. The campaign, it said was “an imitation of its first domestic sale in 2007 as well as the airline’s recent R1 sale when launching its Windows mobile app”.

Not bad, but for real bite, check out Mango’s Twitter response to the debacle:

For affordable fares every day, along with multiple payment methods and partner benefits, #ChooseMango. #WhyNotToday pic.twitter.com/UyVMEiyxKW

— Mango (@FlyMangoSA) August 25, 2015