“ENTHUSIASTIC RESPONSE”
When CNA visited the campaign’s website at 12.15pm, more than 85,000 users were already in the queue ahead, and the estimated waiting time was more than an hour.
Cathay Pacific said it was “very encouraged by the enthusiastic response” from its members.
“Our website functioned well during the registration period. We appreciate the understanding of some members who had to queue to enter the campaign site,” the airline said in a statement.
“We understand that a system maintenance message was shown to some participants intermittently on our campaign page when the campaign started, but we understand that this only lasted for a minute or so.”
Earlier, participants who were unsuccessful at entering the giveaway went online to air their complaints about the registration process.
Some participants in the Telegram group linked to travel website MileLion shared screenshots of the “system maintenance” page that they encountered when the contest opened at 12pm.
On Cathay Pacific’s Facebook page, some commenters said that the airline’s website showed error messages or redirected them, causing them to lose their place in the online queue.
“If the website is not able to handle this amount of people, why not set a limit on how many people can enter the contest and hold it for several days instead of putting all the tickets out at the same timing?” commented a participant.
Cathay Pacific’s main website also experienced delays after the giveaway opened. Visitors had to wait about 21 minutes to reach the landing page when CNA checked about 12.10pm.