Qantas Airways has reached a settlement of 120 million Australian dollars with the Australian Consumer Competition Commission (ACCC). The settlement comes after the airline conceded that it sold numerous tickets in 2022 for flights which had already been cancelled.
Under the terms of the settlement, Qantas has agreed to a civil penalty of A$100 million and will additionally compensate over 86,000 customers with approximately A$20 million. These customers had either purchased tickets for the cancelled flights or were reassigned to them following the cancellation of their initially booked flights.
According to Qantas, domestic passengers affected will receive A$225 each, while international passengers are slated to receive A$450 each. It should be noted that these compensations are over and above any previous remedies offered by Qantas, which may include alternate flights or refunds.
The financial impact of this compensation program and penalty will be reported as an expense in Qantas's financial statement for the year ending 30 June 2024.
The ACCC had initiated a Federal Court action against Qantas in August 2023. It stated that Qantas advertised tickets for upwards of 8,000 cancelled flights between 21 May 2021 and 7 July 2022. Furthermore, Qantas allegedly failed to promptly notify ticketholders about the cancellations of more than 10,000 flights scheduled for departure from May to July 2022.
The ACCC also disclosed that Qantas has now conceded to having continued misconduct from 21 May 2021 until 26 August 2023. This misconduct affected tens of thousands of flights that were scheduled for departure between 1 May 2022 and 10 May 2024.