The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission was suing the airline in the Federal Court over allegations Qantas engaged in false, misleading or deceptive conduct by continuing to sell the tickets.
The competition watchdog announced on Monday the parties had agreed to ask the court to impose a $100 million penalty and that Qantas had admitted the conduct when on for a year longer than the ACCC alleged.
Payments to 86,597 customers who between May 2022 and August 2023 were sold tickets Qantas had already decided to cancel will share in about $20 million in compensation.
Qantas admits it advertised tickets for thousands of flights it had already decided to cancel. (Lukas Coch/AAP PHOTOS)
Qantas will pay $225 to domestic customers and $450 to international ones.
"Qantas' conduct was egregious and unacceptable," ACCC chair Gina Cas-Gottlied said in a statement.
"Many customers will have made holiday, business and travel plans after booking on a phantom flight that had been cancelled."
The commission alleged Qantas advertised tickets for more than 8000 cancelled flights between May 2021 and July 2022.
It was further alleged for more than 10,000 flights scheduled to depart in May to July 2022, Qantas did not promptly notify customers the flights were canned.
Qantas now admits the behaviour went on until August 26, 2023, affecting flights scheduled to depart from May 2022 through to May 2024.
The ACCC announced it was suing Qantas on August 31.
Qantas has agreed not to repeat the conduct in the future and make the payments to affected customers as soon as possible.
It has also undertaken to notify customers of cancelled flights as soon as practicable and no more then 48 hours from deciding to cancel a flight and stop selling tickets for such journeys within 24 hours.
The undertaking applies to subsidiary Jetstar too.
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