The company “admitted to misleading consumers” by advertising seats on tens of thousands of flights when they had been canceled, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
Qantas is expected to pay $13 million in compensation to 86,000 travelers affected by cancellations or botched rescheduling, according to this Source.
“Qantas’ conduct was unacceptable,” said commission chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb.
“Many consumers will have made holiday, business and travel plans after booking a ghost flight that had been cancelled,” she lamented.
Boeing incidents, changes of plan for airlines? “It’s the drop of water that makes the vase overflow”
Qantas admitted that in some cases customers had booked flights that had been canceled “two days or more” previously.
Qantas’ new chief executive, Vanessa Hudson, admitted the airline “failed customers and failed to follow its own rules”.
“We know that many of our customers have been affected by our failure to provide timely cancellation notifications and we are sincerely sorry,” she said in a statement.
Long nicknamed “the spirit of Australia”, the 103-year-old national airline Qantas is on a mission to restore its image after facing a backlash from consumers following the scandal, the surge in ticket prices and the layoff of 1,700 ground staff during the Covid-19 pandemic.
