The ACCC is getting too big for its boots, with Qantas right to take it on

Qantas has entirely plausible explanations for the so-called ‘ghost flights’ it’s being pilloried for, and the ACCC should stand down.

ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb.

Good. Qantas is taking on what is increasingly looking like a rogue regulator in the ACCC.

Two questions spring to mind from Qantas’s spirited response to the ACCC attack, which is alleging quite knows what. But whatever it is, it’s terrible and Qantas should be whacked with a $250m fine.

First, where are the victims? Indeed, where is the victim, singular?

The ACCC says Qantas sold tickets for flights it had already cancelled – suggesting some sort of wicked attempt at a replay of the banks’ ‘fees for no service’.

Qantas says 100 per cent of impacted domestic passengers were offered alternative same-day flights departing within one hour of, or even indeed prior to the cancelled flight.

Oh my God; I was booked on a plane scheduled to depart at 11.10. I demand I get on that plane at exactly that time.

And I know a rogue regulator that will refocus resources to nail down and fight my case!

Note the number, and in these computerised days, I’m guessing that Qantas can substantiate it.

It’s 100 per cent. Not 99 per cent or even 99.9 per cent. But 100 per cent.

Every alleged ‘victim’, as claimed by the ACCC, got offered an all-but exact alternative – and, not exactly incidentally, mostly got offered that alternative well before the actual flight date. Or could have taken a full refund.

Yes, it was less impressive with international. Only 98 per cent of so-affected passengers were offered flights and, in their case, only within a day (not an hour) of their scheduled departure.

But again also, or a full refund; and again, mostly well in time, so they could make alternative arrangements.

The core point of course, is why did Qantas do any of this - continuing to list flights for sale that it had already decided it would have to cancel?

A little event called Covid.

Where Qantas was battered more than any other business in Australia, and arguably indeed more than any other airline around the world.

Then, just as it was trying to get back into business – restarting the fleet, getting its workers back on the job - it runs into Omicron.

You know, the reiteration of Covid that the Vaccine was supposed to have rendered impossible to transmit.

But nevertheless, managed to take out 10, 20 per cent of Qantas flight crews.

Yes, Qantas could have cancelled all those flights, weeks, months ahead - throwing travel plans into chaos.

It chose not to, and as its figures show, it managed to largely deliver – getting almost all those ‘victims’ onto satisfactorily alternative flights.

You got some ludicrous commentary Monday, that Qantas had previously handled ash clouds and bird flu, so its claim that Omicron was “unusual” was nonsense.

Does the idiot that wrote that, actually remember what happened with Covid? Obviously not; they must have been living in a bubble.

The second question, given the ACCC’s equally rogue behaviour over the ANZ-Suncorp merger, is whether chairman Gina Cass-Gottlieb, is driving this out-of-control bus?

Or is she allowing herself to be driven by no-nothing activist underlings?

Originally published as The ACCC is getting too big for its boots, with Qantas right to take it on