ACCC action re cancelled Qantas flights

[justinbrett]

That’s my experience too, but today I heard a radio interview with someone from the Consumer Legal Rights Centre (or similar name) saying that actually there is a right under the consumer legislation to a refund or a replacement at the consumer’s discretion and that both airlines and airline customers seem to have forgotten that. They were encouraging airline customers who could wait for an alternative flight to insist that their cancelled flight be replaced with another flight rather than the palaver that goes on with credit vouchers and the need to spend those on a flight or equal or greater amount, and the reality that once a flight is cancelled, it often cannot be replaced with an otherwise identical flight for the same cost. I for one have suffered from this and I hope it gets picked up somewhere in the current proceeding.

edit for typos

I think it goes to what is reasonable.

If they cancel your 1700 MEL-SYD and offer you a 1645 or a 1715, it's reasonable to accept the change.

If they cancel your QF103 SYD-HNL and offer you a flight two days later, or a connection via LAX, you should be entitled to a refund.

However the QF T&Cs are actually more generous than most airlines and will give you a refund even for a 5 minute change or a cancellation, so not sure what's gone on here. I guess this is the time period when you couldn't actually get through to anyone to request the refund.

IIRC, the new (very good) rebooking tool came out around Jun/Jul 2022.

 

[RooFlyer]

The ACCC served Qantas with compulsory 'provide information' notices. From the ACCC statement:

The ACCC’s investigation included engagement with impacted consumers and the serving of compulsory information notices on Qantas.

It could only have been from these that ACCC was able to determine the point where Qantas decided internally to cancel the flights in question (decided not to operate...), obviously before they were withdrawn from sale and publicly cancelled. Those docs may be a hellava smoking gun. Next would be documentation of how the date to subsequently stop selling tickets on those flights, and then to advise customers, was arrived at. As this seems to have been very variable, may not have been an automated timing?

The QF media statement is interesting, it has no immediate defence (other than the vague post-covid excuse, which is not a defence).

Says to me they're either guilty AF or it has genuinely caught them by surprise.

As the ACCC has been getting documentation from Qantas for a while about this, I don't think it could be taken as a surprise.

 

[justinbrett]

As the ACCC has been getting documentation from Qantas for a while about this, I don't think it could be taken as a surprise.

It would be if QF don’t think they’ve done anything wrong. QF normally come out swinging in cases like this.

 

[Peasant]

As the ACCC has been getting documentation from Qantas for a while about this, I don't think it could be taken as a surprise.

This could be especially interesting in the context of Joyce liquidating 90% of his QF holding for $17m some weeks ago.

 

[Saab34]

Things could get ugly soon. Are QF not in court soon against the ‘illegal sackings’?

Geez just imagine if they are found guilty of that too. AJ certainly isn’t going out the way he hoped. Should have left at the end of the last FY

 

[RooFlyer]

Geez just imagine if they are found guilty of that too. AJ certainly isn’t going out the way he hoped. Should have left at the end of the last FY

Oh, I think he'll manage. This from The Oz on-line, posted this afternoon.

A bad week for Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce has just got drastically better after he was awarded more than $10m worth of shares, from long-term incentive payments and a recovery and retention plan.

Based on the current share price of $5.82, the 1.74 million shares are worth $10.1m, and will form part of his final package at Qantas of an estimated $24m.

ASX announcement here (PDF) https://announcements.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20230901/pdf/05tfbg0kwf6gds.pdf

However, before he departs Qantas Mr Joyce is still in line for another 3.1 million shares as part of the 2023 long-term incentive scheme, potentially worth another $18m.

Best of luck to him, if he can get the Board to approve a scheme like that.

 

[justinbrett]

Things could get ugly soon. Are QF not in court
Geez just imagine if they are found guilty of that too. AJ certainly isn’t going out the way he hoped. Should have left at the end of the last FY

Neither are criminal matters - there is no such thing as “guilty”.

There’s a long road ahead yet for this case. Just google “ACCC lose case” and see the list of many cases against major companies it’s lost in recent years - including google in Dec 22. We shall see how this goes in due time.

 

[#flying]

The issue will be intent, sure there is a stuff up but try proving a 20000 plus person bureaucracy/ business intended to to this and a different story come out.

As far as the law is concerned intent is completely irrelevant to the question of liability. The only question in this case is whether Qantas’ representations were liable to mislead consumers.

That said, if they are liable and it was a bureaucratic bungle (ie not premeditated) that would be a relevant consideration in terms of the penalty amount.

 

[RooFlyer]

there is no such thing as “guilty”.

Good luck with that if the Federal Court makes “findings against”

 

[justinbrett]

Good luck with that if the Federal Court makes “findings against”

For what crime?

 

[Quickstatus]

"Incentive payment"

Why do CEOs need regular incentive payments to do their job?

 

[Must...Fly!]

I wonder if anyone's asked AJ how much company money he is spending on lawyers in their upcoming high court date to try and cover their behinds.

 

[Pushka]

If QF was guilty and pays the fine, hopefully that money is returned to the victims and not just paid to the government, though I assume that is probably what will happen.

that is the infuriating part of any government action where a fee is imposed - the money goes into government coffers. Even in cases where there has been a death - eg workplace accidents.

 

[Quickstatus]

the money goes into government coffers.

Fine = government coffers but the govt didn't "lose" anything in the first place
Restitution = victim wallets but victims have to mount a case. But most the victims can get is what they lost.

 

[oz_mark]

Questions being raised about AJs recent sell down of his shares while this action was pending.

 

[Saab34]

"Incentive payment"

Why do CEOs need regular incentive payments to do their job?

A comment was put out that it’s something to do with retention and avoiding the loss of quality people and they don’t walk off to another company.

I think it’s madness but anyway…..

 

[jrfsp]

Questions being raised about AJs recent sell down of his shares while this action was pending.

Too little too late

 

[Quickstatus]

avoiding the loss of quality people... madness

Madness, a surgeon colleague said to me that its like a surgeon saying he would remove the tumour, but give him an incentive payment to stay until its is removed......

 

[Scarlett]

A comment was put out that it’s something to do with retention and avoiding the loss of quality people and they don’t walk off to another company.

I think it’s madness but anyway…..

I suspect it’s more to do with perception of remuneration. Execs can freely report their salary as x million, safe in the knowledge that it’ll actually be 2x… but they don’t have to report that as widely to the workers in the company and the wider public.

The retention and loss of talent argument is just smokescreen rubbish for the international cabal of MBAs to ‘manage’ their own net worth. Covid lockdowns gave the western world a fleeting snapshot of who the really important workers were…

 

[RooFlyer]

Just read a piece in the Weekend Oz hardcopy by John Durie. Also on-line. Explains the reasoning for the particular course of action taken by ACCC against Qantas and some timings.

The ACCC chose to use its consumer law powers against Qantas rather than a criminal case in pursuit of speed to trial and hopefully a $250m-plus penalty if successful as a deterrence to other companies.

The reason was to bring the case as quickly as possible to counter alleged activity that has already reaped dividends, given Qantas has dropped the deadline for unused ticket claims.

If past practice is any guide, Qantas would have known about the intended action for the past few weeks, but a flurry of initial section 155 discovery notices focused primarily on the Covid fight closures, not the subsequent company action that is the focus of the coming action.

Given the heinous allegations against Qantas, that it sold tickets on flights it knew would not happen, the ACCC could have repeated the 2004 criminal case against Chubb Security for similar alleged behaviour.

Criminal cases are handled “outside” by the Director of Public Prosecutions.