Qantas, Australia's largest airline, has agreed to pay $79 million in compensation and penalty for misleading customers after court action from the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) launched 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.
As part of the agreement between Qantas and the ACCC, both parties will ask the Australian federal court to impose a AU$100 million ($66 million) penalty on Qantas for breaching Australian consumer law, having admitted to misleading its customers. In addition, Qantas has also agreed to pay around AU$20 million ($13.2 million) in compensation to over 86,000 customers.
Qantas will pay AU$225 (~$149) to domestic ticketholders and AU$450 (~$297) to international ticketholders. These payments are on top of any remedies these consumers already received from Qantas, such as alternative flights or refunds.
""Qantas’ conduct was egregious and unacceptable,"" said ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb. ""Many consumers will have made holiday, business and travel plans after booking on a phantom flight that had been cancelled.
""We expect that this penalty, if accepted by the Court, will send a strong deterrence message to other companies."" Cass-Gottlieb added that Qantas, as part of the settlement, has agreed to not repeat the misconduct in the future.
Qantas group CEO Vanessa Hudson said: ""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."" Hudson added that Qantas has since updated its processes and is investing in ""new technology across the Qantas Group to ensure this doesn't happen again.""
Qantas to pay $80 million to settle 'phantom flights' case
