New details have emerged about the extent of the “Fake Flights” scandal involving Qantas Airways Ltd., Australia’s largest airline, which was selling non-existing flights between May 2022 and 2024.
Back in May, the carrier agreed to pay $82 million in fines to thousands of travelers who were deceived into booking flights that either didn’t exist or had been canceled.
During this period, and particularly in the months following the country’s reopening after the pandemic, Qantas’ former CEO, Alan Joyce, was frequently seen mingling with top industry leaders, making headlines for his disruptive strategies to attract customers who were still hesitant to travel after a rather long lockdown.
In March 2022, Qantas announced the launch of its own NFTs with the promise that passengers who purchased these tokens would receive exclusive bonuses when flying with the airline.
A standard marketing strategy, you would say—until it was revealed that 71,000 of those flights were actually fake.
While this scandal was revealed six months ago, recent judicial revelations have shed light on the full extent of Qantas’ “misconduct.”
Court documents revealed this week indicate that senior managers were fully aware of this widespread scheme. This information was not disclosed when the lawsuit was first settled, making the true scale of the deception unclear until now.
The company sold those tickets to over 87,000 travelers who were initially identified as the “affected parties,” but it has now been established that nearly 1 million customers were also impacted in a much broader sense.
As things stand, this larger figure includes not only those who purchased fake tickets but also the 884,000 passengers who were offered flights that Qantas knew would be canceled, revealing the extent of the airline’s deceptive practices, according to a statement of agreed facts and admissions posted on the official federal court website.
“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.”
The court found that the Australian flag carrier had the option to immediately remove canceled flights from its platform but chose not to do so.
Instead, they kept selling tickets for these now “ghost flights” for approximately 11 days and took pretty much the same amount of time to inform customers about the real flight status.
“Everyone feels pain at the anger,” recently appointed Qantas CEO Vanessa Hudson told CNN in Dubai a few months ago. “It’s not just me; It’s 25,000 people that work for us as well. Because not only did we let our customers down, we let our people down.”
It’s hard not to question whether other airlines around the world might have engaged in similar tactics to speed up their financial recovery after the pandemic.
While it’s tough to say for certain, travelers should now stay vigilant against potential airline abuses and take action by filing complaints whenever something seems suspicious about their flights.