Qantas faces $250million fine after allegedly advertising tickets for cancelled flights

Australia’s consumer watchdog is seeking a $250 million payout from Qantas after allegations the flag carrier lied to customers about canceled flights.

ACCC President Gina Cass-Gottlieb revealed the penalty target in an interview with ABC’s RN program.

“The highest fine to date for a breach of Australian consumer law was $125 million against Volkswagen and we believe this should be a record fine for this conduct,” she said.

When RN presenter Patricia Karvelas pressed the consumer protection chief about a potential fine, Ms Cass-Gottlieb said she believed a fine twice the size of Volkswagen’s fine would be appropriate.

“We’d like to get more than double that figure, yes,” Ms. Cass-Gottlieb said.

Ms Cass-Gottlieb said the ACCC wants companies to pay larger sums of money if found guilty of serious misconduct.

“This will be an important test for us, we feel these penalties have been too light,” she said.

“We believe that the fines should be in the hundreds of millions, and not in the tens of millions for infringements.”

The ACCC has taken legal action against Qantas, alleging that the company misled customers by advertising tickets for more than 8,000 flights it had already canceled but not removed from sale.

The ACCC alleges that for more than 8,000 flights scheduled to depart between May and July 2022, Qantas continued to sell tickets on its website for an average of more than two weeks, and in some cases up to 47 days, following the flight cancellation. flee,” said the ACCC.

It is also alleged that for more than 10,000 flights scheduled to depart in May to July 2022, Qantas failed to notify existing ticketholders that their flights were on average around 18 days and in some cases up to 48 days cancelled. ‘

Anger is exploding over the allegations and Ms Cass-Gottlieb, who appeared on 2GB alongside Chris O’Keefe, said the watchdog was ‘holding Qantas to account’.

“Oh Gina, dear oh dear, I think Alan (Qantas chief Alan Joyce) might be in a bit of trouble here,” said O’Keefe.

Qantas said it would take the ACCC’s allegations seriously and would respond “fully” to them in court.

“We have a long-standing approach to managing flight cancellations, with an emphasis on providing customers with rebooking options or refunds,” the company said.

‘It is a process that is in line with common practice at many other airlines.

It is important to note that the period between May and July 2022 examined by the ACCC was a time of unprecedented turmoil for the entire aviation industry.

“All airlines experienced highly publicized issues following a very challenging restart, with continued border uncertainty, sector-wide staff shortages and fleet availability causing significant disruption.”