Qantas acknowledged that it committed such illicit practices in May 2021 and August 2023.
Australia’s competition watchdog, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), revealed that Qantas “admitted it misled consumers” by advertising seats on tens of thousands of flights, despite those flights having already been cancelled.
What is the problem?
Long nicknamed the “Spirit of Australia”, national carrier Qantas has found itself in the headlines for all the wrong reasons in recent months. The airline was accused of selling tickets for already canceled flights. The scandal also extended to the company inadequately informing customers of these cancellations and providing flight credits with expiration dates for travel affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Allegations against Qantas included a delay in notifying ticket holders of cancellations, with an average notification period of 18 days for 10,000 flights. As a result, many consumers have had to suffer from failed and inconvenient rescheduling attempts, even resulting in financial losses for many.
According to Western AustraliaThe ACCC sued Qantas in federal court, alleging the airline sold tickets for more than 8,000 flights between May and June 2022, despite those flights having already been cancelled.
At the time of the investigation, the airline was already facing scrutiny on several fronts, including criticism for exorbitant ticket prices, accusations of subpar service quality and the controversial layoff of 1,700 ground staff amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
When the allegations were first raised, Qantas denied any wrongdoing
Defending their decision to sell seats on canceled flights, the airlines argued that, rather than purchasing tickets for individual seats, customers purchase a “package of rights” and a commitment from the airline to “do its best to carry consumers where they want to be.” It can be noted that Qantas recorded an annual profit of $1.1 billion last year, marking a significant financial recovery following the travel turbulence caused by the pandemic.
ACCC investigation results
At the end of the ACCC investigation, the airline acknowledged that it committed such illicit practices in May 2021 and August 2023, a period that also coincided with the most serious phases of the pandemic. The ACCC described Qantas’ conduct as “egregious and unacceptable”.
As part of an agreement between Qantas and the ACCC, 86,000 impacted customers will receive $13 million in compensation. The $66 million fine mentioned above is subject to federal court approval.
During a press conference, ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb stated that the commission chose to avoid “legal semantics” and emphasized the importance of prioritizing customer reimbursement.
“In the interest of obtaining early settlement and additional payments and compensation to customers, we are no longer requiring them to admit to a misdemeanor of selling the service and receiving payment without intending to provide the service,” Ms. -Gottlieb said, adding “It is It’s very interesting what the legal semantics may be saying, what we consider very important is that Qantas is admitting that it deceived customers by continuing to sell tickets on flights that they had already decided to cancel.”
Explanation and Qantas plans for the future
While Qantas CEO Vanessa Hudson stated that the company provided adequate support to customers, she added that the airline intended to begin remediation efforts before court approval, The Chronicle quoted her as saying.
“Today represents another important step as we work to restore confidence in the national carrier. When flights resumed following the Covid shutdown, we recognized that Qantas had let customers down and fallen short of our own standards. We know that many of our customers have been impacted by our failure to provide timely cancellation notifications, 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. We are focused on making the remediation process as quick and simple as possible for customers,” Ms. Hudson.
She added: “Returning to travel was already stressful for many and we did not provide enough support to customers and did not have the technology and systems in place to support our people.”
Regarding the fine, ACC’s Cass-Gottlieb said: “This $100 million [Australian dollars] The penalty, if accepted by the Federal Court, will send a strong message to Australian businesses that they must comply with Australian Consumer Law.
This story originally appeared on Ndtv.com read the full story
