The airline has come forward to offer payouts of 63 million pounds as a settlement for a fiery legal battle with the Australian competition watchdog for selling thousands of tickets for canceled flights. Qantas advertised and sold over 8,000 flight tickets that were canceled in their internal system.
The airline apologized to its affected customers on Monday and said it was focused on making the “remediation process as quick and seamless as possible for customers”.
“Qantas will commence a projected $20 million remediation program for impacted passengers, with payments to customers ranging from $225 to $450, and subject to the approval of the Federal Court of Australia, will pay a $100 million civil penalty,” it said in a statement.
Qantas Group CEO Vanessa Hudson acknowledged it “fell short of our own standards” and let down customers after flights resumed after the Covid shutdown.
“We know many of our customers were affected by our failure to provide cancellation notifications in a timely manner and we are sincerely sorry,” she said. “The return to traveling was already stressful for many and we did not deliver enough support for customers and did not have the technology and systems in place to support our people.”
The settlement has to be approved by the Federal Court to commence the remediation program, which is not expected to start until 30 June.