Qantas has agreed to pay A$120 million (€74 million) to settle a lawsuit brought against the carrier by the Australian consumer watchdog alleging it continued to sell tickets for cancelled flights in 2022.
The Australian carrier on Monday (6 May) agreed to fork out $20 million to more than 86,000 affected customers as well as pay a proposed $100 million fine in order to resolve court proceedings.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) filed its lawsuit last August, claiming the carrier “engaged in false, misleading or deceptive conduct” by advertising tickets for flights that it had already cancelled but not removed from sale.
The ACCC alleged that for more than 8,000 flights scheduled to depart between May and July 2022, Qantas kept selling tickets on its website for an average of more than two weeks, and in some cases for up to 47 days, after the cancellation of the flights.
In a statement, Qantas said it will shortly seek approval from Australia’s Federal Court of its proposed $100 penalty, but intends to commence its ‘customer remediation programme’ in advance of the court approval process.
Affected customers will receive compensation of $225 for domestic flights and $450 for international flights – financial reparations which the carrier said are on top of any refund or alternative flight already offered to these customers.
"We recognise Qantas let down customers and fell short of our own standards," said Group CEO Vanessa Hudson, who took the reins last September after her predecessor Alan Joyce brought forward his retirement.
“We know many of our customers were affected by our failure to provide cancellation notifications in a timely manner and we are sincerely sorry… We have since updated our processes and are investing in new technology across the Qantas Group to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” Hudson said.