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An American couple was on a trip to New Zealand when they received the sad news. Patricia Kerekes, the wife, was diagnosed with cancer of the gallbladder. She was told that she had only four months left to live.

The couple landed in New Zealand in January and had originally intended to stay there till April. However, their surgeon asked Todd Kerekes to take his wife back to the USA soon.

Todd asked the airline, Air New Zealand, to move up the ticket due to the emergency. However, he was told that it would cost the couple 6.5 lakh (NZ$ 13,000). Todd was “momentarily stupefied” as the new seats were only $100 more expensive than the older ones they had already paid for.

“What they were charging me was four times what the increase in the cost of the flights were,” Todd told media platform Checkpoint.

However, Todd also added that the airline was not particularly rude with him. “They weren’t rude or unkind, but they were simply like, ‘Look, this is the way it is and there’s nothing we can do about it.’ And I was like, it was surprising to me that in a situation where I was that they couldn’t be more helpful,” he said.

Later, Air New Zealand took note of the situation. In a statement, the airline’s general manager Alisha Armstrong acknowledged falling short of the expectations. They agreed to pay a full refund to the couple for additional costs.

“It’s clear we fell short of expectations and our compassionate care policy was not followed in this case. We have reached out to Kerekes to apologise and issue a full refund for the additional costs incurred to change their original flights,” the statement said.

“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.”

The couple flew back to New York on February 26.

“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,” Todd said.

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Published: 04 Mar 2024, 03:44 PM IST

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