CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Qantas Airways has agreed to pay 120 million Australian dollars ($79 million) in compensation and a fine for selling tickets on thousands of canceled flights, the airline and Australia’s consumer watchdog said Monday .
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission took the Sydney-based airline to the Federal Court last year. The commission alleged that Qantas engaged in false, deceptive or deceptive behavior by advertising tickets for more than 8,000 flights from May 2021 to July 2022 that have already been canceled.
Qantas agreed to settle the lawsuit by paying a fine of AU$100 million (US$66 million) to the Australian government and an expected AU$20 million (US$13 million) to more than 86,000 affected customers.
“Today marks another important step forward as we work to restore confidence in the national airline,” Qantas chief executive Vanessa Hudson said in a statement.
“When air travel resumed following the COVID shutdown, we discovered that Qantas was failing its customers and failing to meet our own standards. “We know that many of our customers were affected by our failure to provide cancellation notices in a timely manner and we are sincerely sorry,” said Hudson, who replaced Alan Joyce at the helm of the airline in November last year.
A federal judge still has to accept the settlement.
ACCC chairwoman Gina Cass-Gottlieb said Qantas’ payments of AU$225 ($149) to domestic ticket holders and AU$450 ($298) for international bookings were in addition to other remedies already provided by Qantas , including alternative flights and refunds.
“We are pleased that Qantas has received these admissions that it misled its customers and that it has agreed that this conduct warrants a very significant penalty,” Cass-Gottlieb said in a statement .
“Qantas’ behavior was outrageous and unacceptable. “Many consumers have made vacation, business and travel plans after booking a phantom flight that was canceled,” she added.
Qantas also admitted its misconduct continued until August last year, more than a year longer than the regulator had claimed in court, Cass-Gottlieb said.
The regulator launched the action a week after Qantas posted a record profit for the financial year ending June 30, 2023, following years of losses due to the pandemic.
Underlying profit for 2022/23 before tax was AU$2.47 billion (US$1.6 billion), compared with a loss of AU$1.86 billion (US$1.2 billion) a year earlier.
Qantas reported an after-tax profit of AU$1.74 billion ($1.13 billion) last year.