Embattled airline Qantas has hit back at allegations brought by the competition watchdog that it illegally sold tickets for already cancelled flights.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) filed a lawsuit in the Federal Court in late August, claiming Qantas sold airfares for 8000 services scheduled to depart between May and July last year after the airline had already to cancelled the flights.
In an ASX note filed on Monday, Qantas acknowledged that while “mistakes were made” during its post-Covid restart, it rejected the claim it had sold fares for “ghost flights”, saying passengers were given an alternative flight as soon as possible or offered a full refund.
“While all airlines work hard to operate flights to schedule, no airline can guarantee that,” the Qantas statement said.
“This was not a case of ‘fee for no service’.”
While Qantas admitted some flights remained on sale for more than 48 hours after they were cancelled, the airline insisted that the decision had not been made for commercial gain and was instead due to a “period of massive upheaval”.
“Due to system limitations and the sheer number of flights involved, we couldn’t remove these flights from sale automatically while also providing impacted customers with alternative flights,” Qantas claimed.
Qantas also rejected claims flights had been cancelled to protect the airline’s takeoff and landing time “slots” on the basis that waivers were in place at most airports during that time.
Instead, Qantas claimed the reasons for delays in removing cancelled flights from sale were to give staff time to establish alternative travel options for customers, avoid further blowouts in call centre wait times, and in some cases, human error.
In September, ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said the regulator would target a penalty of $250m.
In its Federal Court claim, the competition watchdog alleged Qantas engaged in “false, misleading or deceptive behaviour”.
Since legal action was brought against Qantas, the airline has updated its policies to remove cancelled flights immediately, well inside the 48 hours that the ACCC case flags.
“While this level of upheaval is hopefully never repeated, we have strengthened our systems and processes to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” the statement said.
Qantas shares wobbled following the announcement to trade at about $4.75 a share.
