Australia's Federal Court has ratified an agreement between Qantas (QF, Sydney Kingsford Smith) and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) that will see the airline fork out over AUD120 million Australian dollars (USD81 million) for selling tickets on already cancelled flights.

The two parties reached an out-of-court settlement in May after the Australian government's consumer watchdog launched legal action in August 2023, alleging the airline knowingly and wrongly took money from passengers by booking them onto already cancelled flights. Specifically, Qantas continued to offer tickets for sale on 70,543 flights for two or more days after it had decided to cancel those flights.

On average, Qantas continued to sell tickets on cancelled flights for about 11 days after cancellation and, in some cases, for up to 62 days after cancellation.

During an October 8 Federal Court hearing in Melbourne, Judge Helen Rofe agreed the egregious behaviour from Qantas warranted the proposed nine-figure penalty and would have a deterrent effect. The settlement sees Qantas pay AUD100 million (USD67.5 million) to the ACCC in penalties and AUD20 million (USD13.5 million) in compensation to affected passengers.

Qantas sustained massive reputational damage over the incident, which it initially attributed to an IT issue. However, it has since admitted that senior managers knew that the airline had not immediately moved cancelled flights from sale and that passengers were still buying tickets on those flights.

Qantas has since overhauled the relevant IT infrastructure to ensure cancelled flights immediately flow out the booking system and has apologised for the incident, which contributed to the downfall of former CEO Alan Joyce and a consequent reduction in bonus payments for himself and other Qantas Group board members.

"A large, well-resourced company like Qantas should have had strong operating and compliance programs in place that would have prevented these issues from arising," an October 8 ACCC statement on the settlement reads.

Qantas declined to add to its previous comments on the matter.