Interview with Channel 7 Sunrise

MATT SHIRVINGTON: Australian airlines will soon be forced to give passengers refunds for disrupted, cancelled or unreasonably delayed flights under a much-needed crackdown on poor customer service. The Federal Government will today announce a powerful new aviation watchdog, which would handle all complaints about airlines and airports. The scheme will lay out a charter of customer rights in a bid to be better protected passengers and their journeys. For more, let’s bring in Transport Minister Catherine King. Good morning to you. Can’t believe this hasn’t existed to this extent until now. Break it down for us. How exactly will this aviation watchdog force airlines to refund passengers?

CATHERINE KING: Well, there’ll be a Charter of Rights that will be enforceable and also penalties if it’s not complied with. And that will be developed by the Ombuds Scheme in itself. It will be legislated as well. We know that leading into COVID, during COVID and post-COVID, you know, airlines and airports obviously have struggled. But what we’ve seen particularly is a really poor experience on the part of passengers – delays, lost baggage, people not able to get refunds, not understanding the contracts often that they’ve entered into when they’re purchasing a ticket and they’re not able to actually be able to use that ticket going forward. So the ombudsperson will really be able to receive complaints. And it’s also really about getting that long-term improvement on the service that people are purchasing. And the bottom line is, if customers buy a ticket and they don’t get the service that they’ve bought, then they deserve to get a refund for that or an equivalent service. And that’s not been happening.

MATT SHIRVINGTON: Yeah, hopefully just handing out a bottle of water and sleeping at the airport, those days are over. European airlines are governed under a very different system. They must compensate passengers if a flight is delayed more than three hours. What– it’s known as pay on delay approach. Is this different?

CATHERINE KING: It is in the sense that you’ve now got a dedicated ombudsperson to which complaints can go to. It may well be that the breach is so egregious that the ombudsperson says compensation may be needed, but what it allows now, which is not happening, it allows those direct complaints to be had around what your customer rights are and lays those out specifically. Often on the European scheme– I know that’s been raised with us, we did have a look at that– often that’s a risk factored into the price of a ticket. It’s not necessarily improving delays or improving services. Really what this is– we’ve had an equivalent sort of scheme in the telecommunications industry for a long time as well– this really is about getting people what they pay for, but then also getting that improvement over time and reporting on that improvement. 

MATT SHIRVINGTON: Well, let’s see. We hope we see some positive change. Thank you. Catherine King, appreciate your time. Here’s Nat.

CATHERINE KING: You’re most welcome. Thanks for having me.