By RICARDO WELLS

Tribune Staff Reporter

rwells@tribunemedia.net

BAHAMASAIR Holdings Ltd yesterday advised the public that persons travelling on tickets purchased outside of its approved sales channels would be denied travel after officials discovered and thwarted a scam which offered “deeply discounted” airline tickets to clients purchasing flights through a third-party source.

The national airline released a statement yesterday alerting the public to the “fraudulent scheme”.

The Tribune understands the issue was noticed after a local, illegitimate credit card was flagged after several transactions resulted in travel logs being reserved without payment procedures being completed.

According to the airline’s Managing Director Henry Woods, the issue was discovered last week through a fraud detection mechanism layered into the company’s purchasing system.

Travellers who purchased tickets through the faulty source, turning up on the date of travel, encountered reserved seating but incomplete transactions, which ultimately ended with cancelled flight plans.

“We discovered this early,” Mr Woods said. “The timing of the discovery aided us tremendously with this matter. Once we became aware of the matter and the depth of it, we alerted local authorities who were able to act and bring an end to this ordeal quickly.

“We are always on the look out for matters like this. It is the nature of the industry so we are always aware that things like this could happen. We had a similar matter four years ago and we dealt with it,” he added.

Mr Woods said while he couldn’t give the financial cost incurred as a result of the scheme, he would estimate it to be very low due to its early detection.

Police have taken one person into custody and are actively searching for another in connection with this matter, The Tribune was told.

Thursday’s statement by the airline company advised that approved sales channels are the company’s ticket offices in Palmdale, Oakes Field, Freeport, all airport counters and authorised travel agencies.

Bahamasair also warned that any tickets purchased via credit cards for anyone other than the credit card holder, would need proper identification and proof of authorisation of usage to be processed for travel.