The Australian federal court has ordered Qantas to pay AU$100 million ($67.3 million) for misleading consumers, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) said on October 8, 2024. The settlement amount was agreed in May 2024, and this marks the final stage of the settlement process.
The ACCC launched court action against the airline in August 2023. The ‘phantom flights’ case saw the airline sell tickets for “tens of thousands of flights it had already decided to cancel”, the ACCC said.
The penalties were imposed after Qantas had admitted it had contravened consumer laws in the region. It had agreed to make joint submissions with the ACCC to the court that the penalties were appropriate to "deter Qantas and other businesses" from breaching Australian consumer law.
"This a substantial penalty, which sets a strong signal to all businesses, big or small, that they will face serious consequences if they mislead their customers," said ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb.
Qantas had also agreed to pay AU$20 million ($13.5 million) to consumers who purchased tickets on flights that Qantas had already decided to cancel. This would amount to payments of around AU$225 for domestic/trans-Tasman flights and AU$450 for international flights per passenger.
Qantas Group CEO Vanessa Hudson said in May after the settlement was agreed: "When flying resumed after the COVID shutdown, we recognise Qantas let down customers and fell short of our own standards. We know many of our customers were affected by our failure to provide cancellation notifications in a timely manner and we are sincerely sorry."
"Up to about 880,000 consumers were affected by Qantas’ conduct," commented Cass-Gottlieb.
Hudson added: "The return to travelling was already stressful for many and we did not deliver enough support for customers and did not have the technology and systems in place to support our people."
After the start of the proceedings, Qantas made changes to its operating and scheduling systems to ensure the issues were ironed out.