A class action lawsuit has been filed against Jetstar in Federal Court over cancelled flights during the pandemic with hundreds of thousands of customers seeking millions in refunds and compensation that were unlawfully retained.
The class action against Jetstar alleges the airline failed to refund customers’ payments for those cancelled flights, despite being legally obliged to do so.
The allegations include that COVID travel restrictions caused airline contracts to be automatically terminated and giving customers a right to automatically recover money paid under those contracts.
The lawsuit also alleges that the airline’s failure to issue refunds was a breach of contract.
Echo Law filed the class action against Jetstar on 21 August 2024. The law firm also has a separate ongoing lawsuit against Qantas in 2023 over its COVID credits program.
Both seek customer refunds and compensation, although the legal underpinning of the claims differs based on the different terms and conditions applicable to each airline.
Echo Law Partner Andrew Paull alleged that, like Qantas, Jetstar breached the law by failing to be transparent and by failing to refund its customers.
“Jetstar promotes itself as a values-driven, low-fare airline committed to helping ‘more people fly, more often’, yet it’s a highly profitable part of the Qantas Group, and when COVID caused widespread flight cancellations it put those profits ahead of its customers’ interests,” he said.
“It expected customers to just be happy with credits, which we allege it was not entitled to do. It now needs to be held accountable and refund that money with interest.
“Many customers ended up paying the airline more than their original booking to use their credits on new fares as they were led to believe they had little choice but to do that or else lose the value of the flights they paid for.
“It is unfair, and we allege unlawful, that Jetstar profited from holding onto its customers’ money for flights it had cancelled,” Paull said.
A JQ spokesperson told the ABC the airline would review the claims filed in the lawsuit.
“Last year we removed expiry dates for COVID vouchers so they can be used indefinitely,” the airline said.
“These vouchers are also multi-use, meaning they can be used across multiple bookings and for multiple people.”
