“We’ve known for a long time that it is a dud but the previous Liberal and Nationals government failed to do any policy work in this space at all. We inherited a mess but are working hard to fix it.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
While the transport minister is working on an aviation white paper, which will look at consumer protections including an independent ombudsman or other models seen overseas, it won’t be making any decisions until next year.<\/p>\n
It’s time for an ombudsman to handle complaints<\/h2>\n
As the aviation and travel industry battles a massive breach of trust among customers, the calls are getting louder for the federal government to urgently plug the holes in consumer protections, starting with an independent ombudsman to deal with customer complaints, a compensation scheme for delayed and cancelled flights, clearer rights for refunds and minimum standards for travel credits and customer service.<\/p>\n
In June, the boss of the competition watchdog \u2014 the ACCC’s Gina Cass-Gottlieb \u2014 urged the federal government to establish an independent agency this year, not wait until next year.<\/p>\n The ACCC also wants the government to introduce fines for cancelled flights.<\/p>\n It is something customer advocate groups including Choice and John Berrill at Berrill and Watson \u2014 who is also a member of the Consumer Action Law Centre and a former director of the now-defunct Travel Compensation Fund \u2014 have been pushing for years.<\/p>\n The ACA was established in 2012, shortly after Qantas’s controversial October 2011 decision to ground its entire fleet, leaving tens of thousands of customers stranded all over the world, to break a deadlock with unions.<\/p>\n Prime Minister Anthony Albanese launched it back when he was transport minister, touting it in a press release as Australia’s first airline advocate. “The creation of this independent position means that for the first time, airline customers will be provided with a real alternative when they are unable to resolve a complaint directly with an airline,” the press release said.<\/p>\n But the airline advocate was never independent. Besides being funded by four airlines \u2014 Qantas, Jetstar, Virgin and Rex \u2014 it reports to a committee made up of airline representatives.<\/p>\n This is in sharp contrast to an independent ombudsman, which is typically overseen by a committee that comprises industry and consumer advocates.<\/p>\n Indeed, most mainstream ombudsman schemes, such as the Australian Financial Complaints Authority and the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, have the power to make decisions that are binding, whereas the little-known advocate’s role is to forward the complaint to the airline and ask for a response in 20 days.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, senior travel journalist Kendall Hill exposed the ACA’s “tortuous process” in an account of a 121-day journey that included unanswered calls and emails, then a decision to drive to the office in October 2022 in the hope that he could get a response to a query about the level of customer complaints for 2022.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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