One error turns the price of a plane ticket into 2147 billion dollars

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Produced by: Mustafa Al-Joabi
Sean Walker, a software developer in Florida, USA, took to his Twitter account to post the cost of a domestic flight ticket at $2147 billion while trying to change a flight.
Walker, a developer who has worked at several Silicon Valley technology companies, including Microsoft, said that while looking for alternatives to travel from Seattle to Palm Beach, the American Airlines app offered him a flight with an imaginary number.
Walker posted a picture of the ridiculous amount, showing one flight option costing $639.31, and another costing $2.147 billion, joking that “maybe the company is now in contract with SpaceX.”
“A glitch in American Airlines’ pricing algorithm caused the problem,” Walker said.
The $639 flight had two stops in Indianapolis and Charlotte in 11 hours and 23 minutes, while the $2 billion option had one stop in Dallas-Fort, arriving in a total of seven hours and 42 minutes.
The airline asked Walker for feedback on making improvements.
“I live in Florida north of Palm Beach,” Walker wrote. “Maybe American Airlines thought I should go to Jupiter.”
He joked that the trip included a zero-gravity stopover and included a photo of the Apollo 11 landing on the moon, joking that “Apollo 11 cost less than my trip between the two parts of the United States.”