Bill of rights proposed for Australian airline passengers to improve airline’s performance

A group of senior lawyers have asked the government for an overhaul of passengers rights. See what you’d get if your flight is delayed or cancelled.

Exclusive: Australian airlines would have to prove delays or cancellations were beyond their control or compensate passengers under sweeping changes proposed by senior lawyers.

The Australian Lawyers Association (ALA) has asked the Albanese Government to create new aviation-specific consumer protection laws in the form of a Passenger Bill of Rights.

As well as compensation, it would extend to basic conditions including free food and water, Wi-Fi, and accommodation, as well as a standardised claim process and timescale for airlines to deal with complaints or claims made against them.

In its submission to the federal government’s Aviation White Paper – that sets aviation policies through to 2050 – the ALA said airlines were letting Australians down.

Travel lawyer and ALA spokeswoman Victoria Roy said Australia lacked a simple compensation scheme like in the EU or Canada.

The Australian Lawyers association wants a passenger bill of rights for Aussies.

“The problem is that Australians do have some rights, but they’re very limited, they’re very vague, and they’re very complex. And if consumers know what their rights are, then you have a situation where it’s costly to enforce,” Ms Roy said.

An EU-style scheme would require airlines to pay passengers on the Melbourne to Sydney route $370 if they were late by three hours or the flight was cancelled.

“In our view, it’s time for Australia to have its own passenger bill of rights that includes flight delay and cancellation compensations that we see in other jurisdictions, but also to go beyond that, to also include obligations on airlines to provide timely communication to passengers when there’s a delay or cancellation,” Ms Roy said.

The ALA said the onus should be on the airline to prove a delay or cancellation is not within their control.

ALA spokeswoman and travel lawyer Victoria Roy

Australian airlines have been cancelling flights more than the long term average. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Geraghty

In October, 3.9 per cent of combined Qantas services were called off while Jetstar and Virgin each pulled 4.1 per cent of its flights.

On time departures were significantly down on the long term average, while the cancellation rate of 3.8 per cent higher than the long term average of 2.2 per cent.

“The statistics clearly show on demand performance is poor.” Ms Roy said.

Sydney Airport Corporation CEO Geoff Culbert told a recent conference there were 184 cancellations on the busy Sydney to Melbourne route in September with almost zero correlation between the cancellations and weather or air traffic control issues.

“So you can read between the lines and see many of these cancellations and delays are operational reasons by airlines,” Ms Roy said.

“We see a flight delay compensation scheme being an incentive for airlines to get those to get those situations right and to have enough staff and standby. The scheme that we’re calling for won’t compensate passengers for every delay, just those that are within an airline’s control,” she said.

The ALA proposal would see airlines having to support stranded passengers. Picture: Amanda Ducker.

“At the moment, there’s no accountability for airlines.”

In a separate submission, the The Australian Airports Association called for an inquiry into anti-competitive behaviour in domestic aviation and an independent Airline Ombudsman to improve consumer confidence.

The creation of the White Paper, comes as amid a legal battle between the ACCC and Qantas after the airline was accused of selling tickets after flights were cancelled.

Qantas denies the claims, insisting it doesn’t sell customers tickets to any particular flight, but rather a “bundle of rights”.

Originally published as Bill of rights proposed for Australian airline passengers to improve airline’s performance