Air New Zealand apologises for charging couple US$8,000 to change flight after cancer diagnosis

Air New Zealand has apologised after it charged a married couple US$8,000 to change their flight.

American tourists Todd and Patricia Kerekes cut their holiday short after Patricia was diagnosed with terminal gallbladder cancer, according to Radio New Zealand.

Todd told the radio station they booked return tickets in business class from New York to Auckland, which cost nearly US$23,000.

The husband and wife reportedly flew to New Zealand in January and intended to stay until April, before Patricia was diagnosed six weeks into the trip.

On their surgeon’s advice to head home, Todd said he contacted Air New Zealand to have their flight moved forward. They flew home on Monday, RNZ reported.

Todd told RNZ’s “Checkpoint” programme he spent four hours trying to get a more reasonable price – and that the new seats were only about US$60 more than the ones he’d previously booked.

Patricia, 75, has about four months left to live, Todd said.

“I resent having that four hours taken away from whatever time I would have spent [with] her, and I do not appreciate the aggravation that my wife had to go through for this,” he added.

Air New Zealand’s general manager for customer care, Alisha Armstrong, said the airline has apologised to Todd and issued a full refund.

“We pride ourselves on the care and consideration we show our customers. It’s clear we fell short of expectations and our compassionate care policy was not followed in this case,” Armstrong said in the statement shared with Business Insider.

“Our compassionate fare policy is in place to support our customers in times of unexpected medical emergency or bereavement to book a last-minute flight or provide flexibility to easily make changes to existing bookings,” she added.

“Once again we