Qantas Airwayss ghost-flight scandal misled almost one million customers booked on tens of thousands of non-existent services, according to court documents that reveal the scale of the misconduct and the airlines awareness of the problem.
Qantas settled the lawsuit last year, agreeing to pay A$120 million (R1.4 billion) in fines and compensation for selling tickets on flights it had already decided to cancel. The Australian carrier also admitted misleading ticketholders by not telling them they were actually booked on phantom services.
The bombshell allegations led to the premature departure of Chief Executive Officer Alan Joyce last year, but it wasnt clear at the time how much Qantas knew about its own ticketing deficiencies. The case was brought by the Australian Competition Consumer Commission, which had sought a record penalty of more than A$250 million.
Thursdays statement of agreed facts and admissions, posted on the Federal Court of Australias website, said senior managers at Qantas collectively knew of all the impacts on passengers, but no single person was privy to the whole picture.
Qantas was aware of the way in which its system operated, the filing said. Consumers suffered harm as a result of Qantass contravening conduct.
