By Francisco Silva -
The Australian airline Qantas has agreed to pay $105 million to settle a class action over flight credits during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In August 2023, a class action was brought against Qantas regarding flights scheduled to depart between 1 January 2020 and 1 November 2022 that the airline cancelled, with affected customers claiming a breach of contract and contractual obligations on refunds.
Qantas has now agreed to settle the class action and pay $105 million, over flight credits with expiry dates, that were awarded instead of refunds.
“This class action was based on allegations that Qantas customers were contractually entitled to cash refunds when their flights were cancelled due to COVID travel restrictions” said Andrew Paull, Partner at Echo Law. “Instead of those refunds, Qantas customers were issued with restricted flight credits.”
When the class action started, Qantas removed the expiry date for the flight credits issued during the relevant time frame, and accepted requests for cash refunds. The agreed sum is in addition to these refund rights.
Qantas agreed to pay the sum of the settlement to a court-approved administrator by the end of 2026.
“This is a very significant financial settlement which will see compensation put in the hands of hundreds of thousands of Qantas customers,” said Paull. “We’re very pleased to have been able to achieve this result.
