ACCC launches Qantas investigation, says airline wasn’t ‘realistic’ about flights it could deliver

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has launched an investigation into Qantas after the watchdog received a sea of complaints from customers about late or cancelled flights, lost baggage, holidays cut short, sleeping in airports, and missed events.

In a report released yesterday, the watchdog said July was the busiest month since the pandemic began with 4.7 million passengers flying domestically, while the Qantas Group (including Jetstar) serviced nearly two-thirds (62%) of this demand.

The month also marked the airline industry’s worst on-time performance ever with 55% of all flights arriving late, and one in 15 flights cancelled altogether — more than three times the long-term average.

ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb told Guardian Australia, that Qantas “did not properly make a realistic assessment of how many flights they could serve”. In other words, the national carrier over-promised and under-delivered.

She acknowledged that external factors (like issues with airport security and air traffic control) were at play, but stressed that airlines “can be realistic about the number of flights that they can serve in a reliable way, based on their level of staffing, and take bookings for that number of flights and not for a higher number of flights”.

As a result, Cass-Gottlieb confirmed the ACCC was investigating a “number of complaints” about Qantas and warned if “evidence of misleading statements” was found, the watchdog would act accordingly.

She declined to say which specific potential breaches of consumer law the watchdog was investigating, but the report laid bare the heartache and disruption felt by travellers more broadly.

“For some, the complaints related to long queues at security or poor communication from the airlines,” the ACCC’s report read.

“For others, there were missed connecting flights, missed events, holidays cut short, lost baggage, and in some cases, nights spent sleeping in airports when flights were cancelled and last-minute accommodation wasn’t available.”

In a statement, a Qantas spokesperson told SmartCompany it was fully prepared to cooperate with the investigation.

“Qantas takes our obligations to comply with the Australian Consumer Law extremely seriously and we’ll respond to any requests for information we get from the ACCC,” the spokesperson said.

The airline says things are on the uptick, however: Qantas’s on-time performance has increased to 70% in August (from 52% in July), and the misplaced bag rate is now six in 1000, slightly above the pre-pandemic level, according to the national carrier.

The ACCC investigation comes as Qantas battles crises on multiple fronts. Overnight 200 passengers travelling from Sydney to Melbourne were escorted off the plane by AFP officers after one passenger evaded a security check in the Harbour City.

Qantas released a statement on Thursday explaining that a passenger on the flight had “inadvertently passed through the unscreened to screened part of the airport in Sydney”.

“As a precaution all passengers were escorted from the airport when it landed and taken through the screened part of the airport into the unscreened area,” it read.

“We will investigate to understand how this incident occurred and we apologise for any inconvenience to passengers on the flight.”

It also comes as Dnata ground crew prepare to strike on Monday amid broken-down communication about pay and conditions. Dnata is a third-party contractor to Qantas and several other airlines, engaged by the national carrier after it illegally sacked 2000 ground crew.

Qantas is appealing the Fair Work Act breach in the Federal Court.

Comparatively, Rex Airlines performed significantly better than other airlines in terms of both “punctuality and rate of cancellations”, the ACCC report found, which the airline attributed to keeping its staff despite reduced flying during the pandemic.

But there have been accusations Qantas is not acting in good faith with the little fish, with the ACCC saying it is also concerned about Qantas’s bid to acquire the remaining shares in Alliance Airlines, following the national carrier securing a 19.9% stake in February 2019.

“The ACCC’s preliminary view is that Qantas’ proposed acquisition of Alliance Airlines may or is likely to substantially lessen competition in a number of airline services,” the report read.

“This includes air transport services to corporate customers to and from regional and remote resource locations in Queensland and/or Western Australia.”