Qantas defends ticket sales for cancelled flights

The news: Qantas has put forward its defence to the Federal Court in response to ACCC claims that Australia’s biggest airline kept advertising tickets last year for flights it had already cancelled.

The numbers: The competition regulator last month commenced court proceedings alleging that Qantas kept selling tickets on its website for more than 8000 flights scheduled to depart between May and July 2022, even after it had cancelled the flights.

The context: In its defence, Qantas acknowledged there were delays and expressed regret that this occurred, but pushed back against the ACCC claims. It said the delays did not equate to Qantas obtaining a ‘fee for no service’ because customers were re-accommodated on other flights as close as possible to their original time or offered a full refund. “In purely legal terms, the ACCC’s case ignores a fundamental reality and a key condition that applies when airlines sell a ticket,” the airline said in an ASX statement on Monday. “While all airlines work hard to operate flights to schedule, no airline can guarantee that.”