“American is now working with SpaceX!” The Silicon Valley exec tried to rebook his AA flight from Seattle to Palm Beach, and one of the options was a ticket costing over $2 billion
- American Airlines priced a man $2,147,483,647 to travel from Seattle to Florida
- Software developer Shaun Walker tweeted a picture of the sky-high sum and joked that American Airlines had partnered with SpaceX for a lunar stopover
- Walker speculated that a glitch in American Airlines’ system led to the award
A Florida software engineer was quoted a sky-high ticket price while attempting to change an American Airlines flight.
Shaun Walker, a developer who has worked for numerous Silicon Valley tech companies including Microsoft, said the American Airlines app offered him a flight worth more than $2 billion while he was researching alternatives for a trip Search from Seattle to Palm Beach.
Walker tweeted an image of the paltry sum – showing one flight option costing $639.31 and another costing a whopping $2,147,483,647.00 – and jokingly wrote, “Perhaps American Airlines is now partnering with SpaceX; ).”
The developer went on to speculate that a bug in American Airline’s pricing algorithm caused the problem, but not before quipping, “The second option involves inflation.”
A SpaceX rocket before a flight. Walker jokes that American Airlines has partnered with the commercial space company
“Today I was looking for alternatives to change an American Airlines flight… and I was offered these options!” Walker wrote, sharing a screenshot of the two flight options.
The $639 flight included two stops in Indianapolis and Charlotte over the course of an 11 hour and 23 minute journey, while the $2 billion option had just one stop in Dallas Fort Worth and took a total of seven hours and 42 minutes .
Walker’s included a request from American’s App asking him to “provide feedback to help us make improvements.”
“I actually live in Jupiter, Florida (just north of Palm Beach)…” Walker wrote. “Maybe American Airlines thought I wanted to go to the planet Jupiter.”
He also joked that the flight included a zero-gravity stopover and a picture of the Apollo 11 moon landing, before joking, “Apollo 11 actually costs less.”
Twitter users quickly jumped in, with one joking, “The peanuts are extra,” and others joking that American Walker asked to buy the plane for the flight and even the entire airline.
“So they let you co-pilot for that amount?” wrote one user.
“Does Microsoft Flight Simulator count as pilot experience?” Walker replied.
American Airlines did not respond to requests for comment.
Walker has worked as a software developer for a number of companies over the past three decades, according to LinkedIn, and has even received a number of Microsoft “Most Valuable Professional” awards for his work over the years.
Shaun Walker has been a software developer for numerous companies for over three decades
