Australian regulator accuses Qantas of promoting tickets for cancelled flights

The ACCC alleges that the corporate stored promoting tickets for greater than 8,000 flights for a median of greater than two weeks after cancellation. In some circumstances the delay was 47 days, the ACCC alleges.

The provider did not notify ticketholders for greater than 10,000 flights of cancellations for a median of 18 days, or so long as 48 days.

“We allege that Qantas’s conduct in continuing to sell tickets to cancelled flights, and not updating ticketholders about cancelled flights, left customers with less time to make alternative arrangements and may have led to them paying higher prices to fly at a particular time not knowing that flight had already been cancelled,” ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb mentioned.

Qantas, which final week reported an annual revenue of 1.75 billion Australian {dollars} (US$1.13 billion), mentioned that its method to cancellations was per these of different airways. It mentioned that the interval examined by the ACCC mirrored the ramp-up in business exercise following long-running Covid-related disruptions.

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

The provider mentioned it should study the allegations and reply to them in courtroom.

Qantas final week launched a contemporary share buyback of A$500 million after swinging again to annual revenue for the primary time since fiscal 2019. It racked up statutory losses of greater than A$4.5 billion throughout the three fiscal years by June 2022.