The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has filed a lawsuit against Qantas, the national carrier, accusing them of advertising and promoting 8,000 air tickets that had already been cancelled. The legal action was initiated by the consumer watchdog on August 31 and is being heard at the Federal Court of Australia.
Qantas continued to sell these tickets for an average of two weeks and, in some cases, up to 47 days after the flights had been cancelled. The flights were scheduled to depart between May and July 2022. Furthermore, the airline failed to inform existing ticketholders for more than 10,000 flights during the same period that their trips had been cancelled.
ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb stated on August 31 that the ACCC had conducted an extensive investigation into Qantas’ flight cancellation practices. She said that the legal proceedings allege that Qantas’ conduct of selling tickets for cancelled flights and not notifying ticketholders of the cancellations left customers with less time to make alternative arrangements and potentially resulted in them paying higher prices for flights that they did not know had been cancelled.
The investigation revealed that Qantas cancelled nearly 25% of flights between May and July 2022, which included about 5,000 cancellations out of the company’s published schedule of 66,000 domestic and international flights. The airline allegedly made many of these cancellations for reasons within its control, such as optimizing its network based on shifts in consumer demand or withdrawing routes.
It’s important to note that the legal action primarily focuses on Qantas’ conduct after the flight cancellations and does not involve any breaches related to the cancellations themselves.
In other news, Qantas’ CEO Alan Joyce has faced criticism recently for lobbying against Qatar Airways’ request for additional flights in Australia. Joyce argued that granting the request would distort the market, a position that Virgin Australia’s CEO Jayne Hrdlicka and Flight Centre’s Managing Director Graham Turner disagreed with. Transport Minister Catherine King defended her decision to reject Qatar Airways’ request, stating that it was in the national interest.
Qantas recently reported a statutory profit after tax of $1.75 billion in the 12 months to June 30, 2023, compared to a loss of $860 million in the previous year. The airline’s revenue also increased from $9.11 billion to $19.82 billion.