Australia's Qantas agrees to $66 million penalty in flight cancellation case

Published: 06 May 2024 at 00:11

Business

(Reuters) -Australian airline Qantas Airways said on Monday it had agreed to pay a penalty of A$100 million ($66 million) to settle a lawsuit that accused it of illegally selling thousands of tickets for flights that had already been cancelled. The penalty is subject to the approval of the Federal Court of Australia, it said in a statement. As part of the settlement with Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), Qantas will start an additional A$20 million remediation program for passengers affected by the cancellations, with each impacted customer receiving payments of between A$225 and A$450, the airline said. "We are pleased to have secured these admissions by Qantas that it misled its customers, and its agreement that a very significant penalty is required as a result of this conduct," ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said in a statement. "The size of this proposed penalty is an important milestone in enforcing the Australian Consumer Law.

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Qantas (disambiguation) (Wikipedia)

Qantas is the flag carrier airline of Australia.Qantas may also refer to:Qantas (genus), a genus of trematosauroid temnospondyl from the Early TriassicQantas Awards (disambiguation)Qantas Defence Services, a defense service now part of Northrop GrummanQudos Bank, formerly Qantas Credit Union, an Australian credit union

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QantasLink (Wikipedia)

QantasLink is a full-service, regional brand of Australian flag carrier Qantas and is an affiliate member of the Oneworld airline alliance. As of 2024, QantasLink provides over 2,000 flights each week to over 50 metropolitan and regional destinations across Australia, as well as short-haul international services to New Zealand, Singapore, the Solomon Islands and East Timor.

Qantas (Wikipedia)

Qantas Airways Limited ( KWON-təs) is the flag carrier of Australia. It is the largest airline by fleet size, international flights, and international destinations in Australia and Oceania. Qantas is the world's third-oldest continuously operating airline, being founded in November 1920. Qantas is a founding member of the Oneworld airline alliance.Qantas is an acronym of the airline's original name, Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services, as it originally served Queensland and the Northern Territory. It is popularly nicknamed "The Flying Kangaroo". It is considered the only airline in the world to fly to all seven continents, with it being the only airline operating regular sightseeing flights to Antarctica, along with flights to Africa, Europe, Asia, North America and South America.Qantas is based in the Sydney suburb of Mascot, adjacent to its main hub at Sydney Airport. As of March 2023, Qantas Group had a 60.8% share of the Australian domestic market. Various subsidiary airlines operate to regional centres and on some trunk routes within Australia, as well as some short haul international flights under the QantasLink banner. Qantas owns Jetstar, a low-cost airline that operates both international services from Australia and domestic services within Australia and New Zealand. It holds stakes in a number of other Jetstar-branded airlines in Asia, as well as Fiji Airways.

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Qantas Flight 72 (Wikipedia)

Qantas Flight 72 (QF72) was a scheduled flight from Singapore Changi Airport to Perth Airport by an Airbus A330. On 7 October 2008, the flight made an emergency landing at Learmonth Airport near the town of Exmouth, Western Australia, following an inflight accident that included a pair of sudden, uncommanded pitch-down manoeuvres that caused severe injuries—including fractures, lacerations and spinal injuries—to several of the passengers and crew. At Learmonth, the plane was met by the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia and CareFlight. Fourteen people were airlifted to Perth for hospitalisation, with 39 others also attending hospital. In all, one crew member and 11 passengers suffered serious injuries, while eight crew and 99 passengers suffered minor injuries. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) investigation found a fault with one of the aircraft's three air data inertial reference units (ADIRUs) and a previously unknown software design limitation of the Airbus A330's fly-by-wire flight control primary computer (FCPC).

Qantas fleet (Wikipedia)

Qantas operates a fleet of Airbus A330, Airbus A380, Boeing 737 and Boeing 787 making a total of 125 aircraft. This list excludes subsidiaries Jetstar, QantasLink and Qantas Freight.

Qantas Flight 32 (Wikipedia)

Qantas Flight 32 was a regularly scheduled passenger flight from London to Sydney via Singapore. On 4 November 2010, the aircraft operating the route, an Airbus A380, suffered an uncontained failure in one of its four Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines. The failure occurred over the Riau Islands, Indonesia, four minutes after takeoff from Singapore Changi Airport. After holding for almost two hours to assess the situation, the aircraft made a successful emergency landing at Changi. No injuries occurred to the passengers, crew, or people on the ground, despite debris from the aircraft falling onto houses in Batam.On inspection, a turbine disc in the aircraft's number-two engine (on the port side nearer the fuselage) was found to have disintegrated, causing extensive damage to the nacelle, wing, fuel system, landing gear, flight controls, and engine controls, and a fire in a fuel tank that self-extinguished. The subsequent investigation concluded that the failure had been caused by the breaking of a stub oil pipe, which had been manufactured improperly.The failure was the first of its kind for the A380, the world's largest passenger aircraft. At the time of the accident, 39 A380s were operating with five airlines: Qantas, Air France, Emirates, Lufthansa, and Singapore Airlines. The accident led to the temporary grounding of the rest of the six-plane Qantas A380 fleet. It also led to groundings, inspections, and engine replacements on some other Rolls-Royce-powered A380s in service with Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines, but not in the A380 fleets of Air France or Emirates, which were powered by Engine Alliance engines.

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Jetstar (Wikipedia)

Jetstar Airways Pty Ltd, operating as Jetstar, is an Australian low-cost airline headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Qantas, created in response to the threat posed by the airline Virgin Blue (now known as Virgin Australia). Jetstar is part of Qantas' two brand strategy of having Qantas Airways for the premium full-service market and Jetstar for the low-cost market. As of 2015, Jetstar carries 8.5% of all passengers travelling in and out of Australia.The airline operates an extensive domestic network as well as regional and international services from its main base at Melbourne Airport, using a mixed fleet consisting of the Airbus A320 family and the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Like its Qantas parent, Jetstar competes with Virgin Australia. Qantas, through the Jetstar Group, also has stakes in airlines Jetstar Asia Airways and Jetstar Japan.

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Iran's missile and drone attacks on Israel caused chaos in the aviation industry, leading to the cancellation and rerouting of flights by at least a dozen airlines, including Qantas, Lufthansa, United Airlines, and Air India. This was the most significant disruption since 9/11. Middle East airlines like Emirates, Qatar Airways, and Etihad Airways have resumed operations after the attacks. Lufthansa suspended flights to several Middle Eastern destinations, and United Airlines canceled a Tel Aviv flight. Other airlines like American and Delta are monitoring the situation closely.

BHP's Brazilian unit to review court decision on $24.8 billion claim over 2015 dam collapse

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List of Qantas destinations (Wikipedia)

Following is a list of destinations Qantas flies to as part of its scheduled services, as of May 2023. It also includes destinations served by Qantas subsidiary QantasLink. Terminated destinations are also listed. Qantas flies to 61 domestic and to 34 international destinations, including seasonal destinations, in 23 countries across Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania, excluding the destinations served by its subsidiaries other than QantasLink.

$Australia\'s Qantas agrees to $66 million penalty in flight cancellation case$

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Qantas Pays A$100 Million Fine to Settle Ghost Flight Claims

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