Qantas says it ‘does its best’, no guarantees flights will take off

afr.com:

Qantas has rejected the basis of the competition regulator’s case against the airline, saying customers are not buying a specific flight when they book to travel but instead a “bundle of rights” to fly and blaming its booking systems for selling trips it had already cancelled.

In documents filed with the Federal Court, the airline said the regulator did not understand what service that the company was offering. It was not a “particular flight” but rights “consistent with Qantas’ promise to do its best to get consumers where they want to be on time”.

Qantas chief executive Vanessa Hudson. Edwina Pickles

In late August, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission alleged that the national carrier had deceived customers when it sold tickets for more than 8000 flights that were already cancelled.

However, the ACCC’s claim relates to the timeliness of Qantas’ actions – not just the fact that flights were cancelled. The regulator alleges that the airline did not tell customers it had cancelled their flights for weeks, sometimes for more than a month, after it had decided to do so.

The allegations rocked the airline, which was already struggling to stem customer anger at cancelled and delayed flights, high airfares after the COVID-19 pandemic, and poor service. Since the ACCC filed its claims with the Federal Court, Alan Joyce has exited as Qantas chief executive and Richard Goyder has flagged he will retire as the airline’s chairman.

In a statement on Monday, Qantas said it was unable to remove flights from sale even after they had been cancelled internally “while also providing impacted customers with alternative flights” due to “system limitations” and because of the large number of flights involved.

“While managing