Airlines, advocates warn of bureaucratic maze for passenger complaints

Airlines and advocates have warned that new consumer protections to protect air travellers risk creating a bureaucratic maze where passenger complaints get stuck in a “referral roundabout”.

Concerns that airline passengers won’t be able to easily navigate newly established and existing aviation consumer authorities have been aired in submissions to a Senate committee reviewing the government’s legislation to form the Aviation Consumer Protections Framework.

“The framework introduces multiple institutional actors with overlapping responsibilities, alongside existing regulators with concurrent jurisdiction, which risks creating confusion for both consumers and regulated entities,” the Law Council of Australia wrote.

Advocacy groups say the legislation could result in passengers with complaints being unable to find the right authority, or arriving in bureaucratic dead ends, an outcome that would be little changed from the current situation.

The Albanese government introduced legislation into Parliament in April. It will create an Ombuds Scheme to resolve eligible individual consumer complaints that can’t be fixed directly with airlines or airports. It also forms the Aviation Consumer Protection Authority to enforce a charter, which sets service standards for the industry.

The legislative reform follows a series of dramatic service failures by the industry, including customers being booked on non-existent Qantas flights and flight credits being purloined from customers after the COVID lockdowns.

The Australian Federation of Disability Organisations said the legislation must provide “a ‘no wrong door’ complaints process, that quickly resolves issues with jurisdiction and provides the ability (and a positive obligation) of each regulator to refer directly to each other”. Such a rule would also oblige “all of the regulators to co-operate in any complaint procedure or investigation.”

The Australian Human Rights Commission and Law Council of Australia have also backed the suggestion.

Currently, aviation-related complaints go to an industry-run Airline Customer Advocate. Sixty per cent of the 4353 complaints sent to the advocate in 2024 were deemed ‘ineligible’. The ACCC, meanwhile, will act on systemic issues affecting aviation but not individual ones, and the Human Rights Commission handles complaints linked to a person’s experience of discrimination or disability.

In its submission, the Federation of Disability Organisations wrote that agencies “must work collaboratively to help people find the right complaint pathway and avoid people getting stuck, frustrated, or lost on a ‘referral roundabout’.”

The recommendation is one of a series of statements lodged by airlines, airports, peak bodies, individuals and representative groups to the Senate Standing Committees on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport.

Transport Minister Catherine King has stressed that even while airline performance has improved since the COVID-19 pandemic, there is still a broader need to better protect aviation consumers.

“The war in the Middle East has highlighted how travellers can experience disruption and uncertainty domestically, and how important it is for them to have increased protections when they fly,” King said.

“The Albanese Government will continue to work constructively with consumer groups and the aviation industry as this legislation and the associated regulations are progressed.”

Consumers have relied on airlines handling escalated complaints themselves through voluntary industry arrangements and have frequently been left disappointed. A government-sponsored survey of 4000 Australians’ experience of travel found that when they encounter a disruption, 95 per cent did not complain.

While Qantas and Virgin supported the goal of improving customer outcomes, they questioned the structure of the framework and how the cost of funding it (charged to airlines) would affect a low-cost carrier like Jetstar. Virgin also listed “inequitable cost allocation and unbounded financial exposure” among its concerns.

Qantas stressed that its on-time performance, customer satisfaction and ability to rebook disrupted passengers have “improved materially” since the 2024 release of the Aviation White Paper, which proposed the creation of the new laws.

The legislation “attaches accountability to the airline that offers the service” whether the airline is operating the service, or selling it through a codeshare, which “materially expands airline liability beyond areas of operational control and third-party services,” Qantas said. The airline has codeshare agreements with American, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, and Emirates, based in the United Arab Emirates near the Iran war zone.

Virgin pointed to the bill’s relative complexity, saying it will create duplications with the ACCC and risks diminishing consumers’ clarity about their rights.

The bill contains no provision that the Ombuds won’t take up complaints that are already being pursued in a “court, tribunal or other complaint handling body”, Virgin wrote in its submission.

“We are continuing to engage collaboratively with the government,” a spokesman said.

A public hearing has been scheduled for May 29. The Senate Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport will report its findings in June.

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