Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2014-03-29
A screenshot of the notice on the Elong site announcing the suspension of Malaysia Airlines ticket sales. (Internet photo) |
Two Chinese
ticketing websites announced that they have suspended sales of Malaysia
Airlines' flight tickets until the company reaches an agreement with the
families of the 153 Chinese passengers on the missing plane MH370, reports the
Chinese-language Beijing Times newspaper.
One of the
two websites Elong said it made the decision because two of the passengers on
the plane that disappeared March 8 en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur bought
their tickets through their site. The firm said that they have also been
dissatisfied with the airline's response to and handling of the incident. It
began the suspension Thursday and will not lift it until the families reach an
agreement with the airline. People who have already bought the airline's tickets
through the site can still use them or get a full refund from Elong. The
Chinese firm will also provide compensation of 100,000 yuan (US$16,100) to each
of the families of the two passengers who were booked on the flight through the
website.
Another website
Ly.com also announced a suspension for an indefinite period of time and offered
full refunds for customers who wanted to cancel flight tickets and tours they
had bought through the ticketing website. The refunds are available to all
customers no matter whether or not Malaysia Airlines have agreed to refund
tickets.
The
Malaysian civil aviation authority pledged to continue the search for the plane
for as long as it takes, citing the example of an Air France plane, for which
search teams spent two years looking before recovering the black box of the
crashed flight in 2009. Several countries have been taking part in the search
effort for the missing plane, and there has been no talk of putting an end to
the search as yet.
The black
box of the missing flight is set to run out of battery in ten days. The air
operations commander of the Royal Malaysian Air Force Lieutenant General Datuk
Seri Ackbal Abdul Samad said the search area for the missing plane has been
narrowed. A ship specializing in probing has also joint the search effort.
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