Qantas should be fined ‘hundreds of millions’ if guilty to send message to companies, ACCC says

Qantas is accused of selling tickets for thousands of flights that the airline had already cancelled in its system. Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP

The consumer watchdog wants to see Qantas hit with hundreds of millions of dollars of penalties if its legal action alleging the airline was selling tickets already cancelled flights succeeds.

Gina Cass-Gottlieb, chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), said on Friday she wanted the Qantas case to deliver a new record penalty for consumer law breaches to scare other companies that had stopped fearing such fines.