Qantas Airways sold thousands of seats for flights it had already canceled, consumer group alleges in new lawsuit

• Qantas Airways has been sued by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
• The complaint alleges that Qantas sold seats on flights that had already been canceled.

A lawsuit filed against Qantas Airways alleges that the company listed and sold tickets for flights that it knew were already canceled.

Between May 2021 and July 2022, Qantas listed flights for sale that it knew had already been canceled for various reasons, according to the statement of the lawsuit, brought by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), which promotes market competition and advocates for consumers.

Some of the cancelation reasons were "within Qantas' control," per the statement, such as optimizing networks or withdrawing routes.

Even though the company knew — or should have known — the flights had been canceled, the complaint alleges they still listed seats on 8,000 flights for days after their cancelation. On average, the flights were being offered for sale for 16 days after their cancelation, per the statement.

Additionally, the webpage titled "Manage Booking" displayed details of 10,000 flights that had been canceled for two or more days without any indication of their cancelation. It took nearly three weeks after the cancelations for ticket holders to be informed that their flights were no longer taking place, per the suit.

The statement added that customers might have paid more to fly at specific times, or would have chosen different dates or airlines to fly on if they had known the listed flights had already been canceled.

"As a result of Qantas' conduct, consumers may have made decisions to purchase flights based on false or misleading information," the statement says. "As a result of such decisions, some Qantas customers may have suffered loss in that they have made travel or other arrangements based upon expected flight schedules."

In a statement sent to Insider, Qantas said it takes the accusations against them "seriously," and said their approach to managing cancelations was consistent with other airlines' practices.

"It's important to note that the period examined by the ACCC between May and July 2022 was a time of unprecedented upheaval for the entire airline industry," the statement says. "All airlines were experiencing well-publicized issues from a very challenging restart, with ongoing border uncertainty, industry-wide staff shortages and fleet availability causing a lot of disruption."

The ACCC told Insider that the courts and parties have yet to decide on recompense for potentially impacted customers.

Have a news tip? Contact this reporter at scahill@insider.com.