At last, a charter of rights for Australian airline passengers – but where’s the compensation for delays? | Monique Ryan
One in four flights in Australia are delayed. At least one in 50 are cancelled. Australian governments have never legislated consumer protections for air passengers. Sunday’s announcement of a draft charter of passenger rights goes some way towards addressing the frustrations of the system but it left out the most important issue: the need for cash compensation for delayed flights.
When a flight is significantly delayed in Canada, every passenger receives $400. In the US, $100. In the EU, a full refund and €250. Those payments are made within days. In Australia we’re lucky to get a $20 meal voucher. Under the draft charter, airlines will have to help passengers delayed for more than three hours find another flight and provide meals and accommodation – but they won’t pay compensation for those delays or for missed connections. For the price of a minor increase in customer service which is, really, the least passengers should have a right to expect, the airlines get off the hook … again.
Airlines would be less likely to cancel or delay flights, or engage in slot-hoarding, if they had to pay up to $100,000 in compensation a flight. The Albanese government has failed to put in place the one measure that could have transformed how airlines deal with delays at domestic airports.
There are good pieces to this charter of rights. Passengers will now receive full refunds – not vouchers – within 14 days of cancelled flights. Lost luggage will be returned cost-free. Airlines must acknowledge complaints in 24 hours and resolve them within 30 days (Qantas took an average of 97 days in 2023). There’s a statement of rights for disabled customers to be treated with dignity and inclusivity. But these reasonable standards should have been in place years ago. We didn’t need a white paper, green paper and ongoing consultation for them; they could have been agreed upon by the disaffected passengers up by gate 16 at Tullamarine.
Qantas and Virgin have bounced back financially since the Covid lockdowns. They’ve benefited from Bonza going into liquidation and Rex withdrawing from major domestic routes. Together they now service 98% of domestic passengers. Their real average revenue per passenger increased by 13.3% between July and September, reflecting an increase in seasonal demand and fuller flights. In the face of limited competition they’ve been able to keep domestic fares stable, despite a 41% decrease in jet fuel prices which has contributed to a 5% to 10% fall in international air fares. The government’s reforms will do nothing to improve competition in our aviation sector.
This charter will be administered by an interim ombud, Pauline Sullivan. It does not yet detail penalties for code breaches. Consultation continues until February, making it unlikely to be legislated before the next federal election.
This move to better consumer protections for Australian travellers is much too limited and it’s happening too slowly. Only by forcing airlines to reimburse passengers for unreasonable delays and cancellations will we incentivise them to provide better service by reducing cancellations and delays. As we sit in airports this Christmas season, waiting on delayed or cancelled flights, the issue will be front of mind for hundreds of thousands of Australians. And, as we near the end of this parliamentary term, it’s an issue the government must address with urgency.
