Qantas Accused Of Misleading Nearly 1 Million Passengers With 'Ghost Flights'

Australia's consumer watchdog has brought up allegations against Qantas Airlines for allegedly misleading almost one million customers with non-existent flights, also known as "ghost flights."

Qantas found itself at the center of a massive scandal in May, when it was accused of knowingly selling tickets on canceled flights and failing to promptly notify affected passengers. At the time, the airline agreed to pay AU$120 million ($82 million) in fines and compensation and admitted to withholding timely information from ticketholders, who were unaware that their bookings were on canceled flights.

The explosive claims led to the premature departure of CEO Allen Joyce. However, the full extent of Qantas' awareness of its ticketing glitches remained a mystery at that time.

A court filing on the Federal Court of Australia's website revealed Thursday that knowledge about the issue was fragmented among the senior Qantas managers, Bloomberg reported.

The statement of agreed facts and admissions, signed off by both ACCC and Qantas, revealed that Qantas's high-ranking officials were aware of the IT error.

Qantas, however, declined to identify the officials involved in the scam, but implied that current CEO Vanessa Hudson was not among them.

"Senior managers responsible for different aspects of Qantas' systems and operations knew that flights the subject of a cancellation decision were not immediately removed from sale; that some consumers could and did make bookings on flights after those flights had been the subject of a cancellation decision; that consumers who had made bookings on flights that were the subject of a cancellation decision were not notified of that decision immediately; and that the Manage Booking Pages for flights that were the subject of a cancellation decision were not updated to reflect that decision promptly, although no single person knew all these matters," the document read.

Hudson took over as CEO in September 2023 after serving as the carrier's group CFO previously.

"Qantas was aware of the way in which its system operated," the filing said. "Consumers suffered harm as a result of Qantas's contravening conduct."

It was further alleged that Qantas failed to promptly remove the flights that were no longer on sale even though it could do that manually. The airline has since updated its systems.

Between May 2022 and May 2024, Qantas had sold tickets on 71,000 canceled flights, affecting 87,000 passengers who bought tickets on or were rebooked onto non-existent flights and 884,000 customers, who weren't promptly notified of cancellations.