Mailing out-of-pocket customers ‘pointless’: Qantas

afr.com:

Qantas says getting money back to customers “is an expensive task” but that it is “not shy” about doing so, although it refused to commit to sending physical mail to people in credit for flights not taken.

“It would be a pointless task to send letters to people we don’t have valid addresses for,” Qantas chief counsel Andrew Finch told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday.

Qantas general counsel Andrew Finch claims the airline is a world leader in refunding flight credits. Alex Ellinghausen

Mr Finch declined to detail the total value of credits belonging to Qantas customers across its Australian, Jetstar and international groups, after chief executive Alan Joyce told a Senate hearing a day earlier that the number was not known. Qantas’ December accounts listed the total figure at $800 million.

Mr Finch said it was unfair to characterise Qantas as “shy” in returning the money and said the company was working harder than other airlines to return funds to customers.

“I think we can safely say we’re trying our best and taking out full pages ads isn’t cheap, and we have done as much, if not more, than almost anyone in this space worldwide to encourage people to use their credits or get refunds,” he said.

Earlier on Tuesday, Virgin Australia chief executive Jayne Hrdlicka said the country’s second-biggest airline had three types of travel credits in its business.

These included credits booked before the company went into administration in April 2020, the value of which has fallen from $700 million to $300 million as the credits were cleared. She said a further $1.2 billion of credits occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, although just 11 per cent of that total remained.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said customers “should be