The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) today announced that Qantas, Australia's largest airline, was ordered yesterday by the Federal Court to pay AUD 100 million (about USD 67.3 million) for deceiving consumers by offering and selling tickets for flights it had already decided to cancel, and for failing to promptly notify ticket holders of its decision, following a lawsuit brought by the ACCC.

"These fines were imposed after Qantas admitted to having breached the Australian Consumer Law (Acl). In addition to these fines, already last May 5, the Australian airline, which had admitted the breach, had already committed to the ACCC to pay approximately 20 million dollars to consumers holding the tickets mentioned above. To these must be added credits that the customers in question have already received from Qantas, in alternative flights or refunds".

Gina Cass-Gottlieb, Chair of the ACCC Commission, stressed that "Approximately 880,000 consumers have been affected by the conduct" of the company.

The airline, we said, admitted to having breached Australian consumer protection law, "by engaging in misleading or deceptive conduct, making false or misleading statements and behaving in a manner that misleads customers on more than 82,000 flights departing between May 2022 and May 2024", the regulator said. Specifically, the company continued to offer tickets for sale for tens of thousands of domestic and international flights for two or more days after deciding to cancel. This affected:

- 70,543 flights (69,237 domestic and trans-Tasman flights and 1,306 international ones).

- 86,597 consumers booked or were re-booked on a flight that had already been cancelled (81,238 of these consumers booked on a domestic or trans-Tasman flight and 5,359 booked on an international flight). On average, tickets for these cancelled flights were on sale for around 11 days after the cancellation, and in some cases up to 62 days after.

The carrier, the ACCC continues, "also continued to display flight details on the 'Manage Booking' page to ticket holders for two or more days after deciding to cancel them. This affected:

- 60,297 flight connections (57,274 domestic/trans-Tasman flights and 3,023 international).

- 883,977 consumers (806,406 of whom had domestic/trans-Tasman bookings and 77,571 of whom had international bookings). On average, it took Qantas approximately 11 days for ticket holders to be notified that their flight had been cancelled. In some cases it took up to 67 days". The Commission did, however, recognise Qantas' cooperation in resolving this case at an early stage, and its commitment to implementing a redress programme prior to the final hearing that led to the current judgment.