Key Points
- Consumer advocates want Australia to introduce a compensation scheme for flights that are delayed or cancelled.
- Compensation for flight delays or cancellation in Australia currently differs between airlines.
- Advocates say Australia lags well behind other parts of the world
Almost anyone who's caught a flight in Australia in recent years will have faced at least one delay or cancellation.
showed that March's on-time-arrivals figure across all routes was significantly lower than the long-term average.
The on-time-departures figure was also significantly lower than the long-term average, while the rate of cancellations was higher.
To improve passengers' experiences and hold airlines accountable for delays and cancellations that are within their control, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), the Australian Lawyers Alliance, and consumer advocacy groups Choice and Consumer Champion have all separately called for the federal government to introduce a compensation scheme.
Here's what you might be entitled to if such a scheme were introduced.
What compensation are you currently entitled to?
The type and amount of compensation offered to affected passengers will depend on the airline they’re travelling with and its conditions of carriage.
While some will get a refund or be put on a replacement flight, others may only be given a food voucher of enough value to cover the cost of a coffee at the airport.
Australian Lawyers Alliance (ALA) spokesperson Victoria Roy said there was also a guarantee under Section 63 of the Australian Australian Consumer Law that services had to be supplied "in a reasonable time", but that it was "too vague" and "too complex" to enforce.
"When there's no incentive or nothing to hold airlines accountable for delays or cancellations, then consumers are certainly the weaker party," she said.
It's for those reasons that the Australian Lawyers Alliance is advocating for a national scheme to be introduced to compensate passengers for flight delays and cancellations, Ms Roy said.
"Australia is a vast country where air transport is essential, and yet we don't have our own scheme," she said.
"It's really frustrating."
Do other countries have compensation schemes for cancelled and delayed flights?
The European Union (EU), Canada, the United Kingdom, Thailand and Malaysia are among the jurisdictions that already have passenger compensation schemes in place.
"The EU one is very well-established. If a short flight is delayed by three or more hours — so the equivalent of, say, Adelaide to Sydney — then the passengers are entitled to €250 compensation for that inconvenience, so that's about $400," Ms Roy said.
"Long-haul flights for the equivalent of Brisbane to Bali, or that kind of distance, they're entitled to up to €600, which is about $1,000, and that's if it's delayed for four hours or more.
"In Canada, passengers can get up to $1,000 for long delays."
What's being proposed for Australia?
Ms Roy said that, while there should be consultation about what type of scheme would work best for Australia, the EU model was a good starting point.
"We certainly need a simple scheme in Australia that compensates passengers, something that passengers can use themselves, and a scheme that gives airlines an incentive to run on time," she said.
"The reason why the EU scheme in our view is successful is that it does very well at protecting consumer rights, and yet flights in Europe are still competitively priced."
Another benefit of the EU model is that it makes flights compensable when the reason for delay is within the airline's control, Ms Roy said.
"We can all appreciate that medical emergencies happen, severe extreme weather events happen sometimes," she said.
"But if it's for operational reasons, like an airline hasn't got enough passengers booked on a certain aircraft so they're going to cancel it and combine two flights … they're the sorts of situations where we think that passengers' inconvenience should be compensated."
The federal government is currently preparing an aviation white paper, to examine the issues facing the sector and suggest solutions.
, the ACCC also made reference to the EU's compensation scheme when discussing the introduction of more specific consumer compensation entitlements for delayed or cancelled flights.
It said improved frameworks were needed to better incentivise airlines to invest in improving customer service and provide an effective external dispute resolution system, as well.
