Qantas sued by regulator over alleged sale of tickets for cancelled flights

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Australia’s flagship airline Qantas has been sued by the country’s competition regulator for “false, misleading or deceptive conduct” in connection with allegedly selling tickets for thousands of flights that were already cancelled.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission alleged on Thursday that Qantas cancelled 8,000 domestic and international flights between May and July 2022 but continued to sell tickets for the trips for up to 47 days afterwards.

ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said tens of thousands of people were likely to have been affected by the cancellations.

“We allege that Qantas made many of these cancellations for reasons that were within its control, such as network optimisation including in response to shifts in consumer demand, route withdrawals or retention of take-off and landing slots at certain airports,” she said in a statement.

The ACCC said Qantas had cancelled one in four flights — or 15,000 trips — during the three-month period in question and cited examples of customers being left hundreds of dollars out of pocket and facing long layovers due to last-minute rearrangements.

The regulator added that on average customers were not told for 18 days that flights for which they had bought tickets had been cancelled.

Qantas said it would examine the allegations and respond in court but argued the period in question during the pandemic was “a time of unprecedented upheaval” across the global airline industry.

“All airlines were experiencing well-publicised issues from a very challenging restart, with ongoing border uncertainty, industry wide staff shortages and fleet availability causing a lot of disruption,” said the carrier.

Qantas shares fell 2.8 per cent on Thursday to A$5.86 ($3.80).

Qantas has historically enjoyed a strong reputation for customer service in the global airline industry.

But the company was widely criticised last year when delayed and cancelled flights and baggage handling issues caused chaos for travellers at a time when the tourism industry was rebounding from strict Covid-19 lockdowns.

Last week, Qantas reported a record A$1.7bn in net profit for the 12 months to June, reversing a series of annual losses during the pandemic that had threatened its survival.

The airline has also been in focus this week after Alan Joyce, its outgoing chief executive, admitted in a senate hearing that the company had lobbied the government to block a request from Qatar Airways to land more flights in Australia.

That triggered a debate about whether the national airline’s profit had been protected by the government at a time when airfares were being sold at historically high prices.