Haverkort v Qantas Airways Limited

Haverkort v Qantas Airways Limited [2025] FCA 1147 sits inside the larger Qantas flight credits class action, but this particular judgment is not about whether Qantas ultimately owes compensation. It is an interlocutory decision about process. Justice Moshinsky had to settle how group members should be told about their right to opt out of the proceeding, and what questions should be put to economics and or forensic accounting experts for an initial trial.

The Court-approved notice says the class action concerns Qantas flights scheduled to depart between 1 January 2020 and 1 November 2022 that were cancelled by Qantas, where flight credits were issued. The notice records that the applicant alleges Qantas failed to provide refunds within a reasonable time, misled customers, engaged in unconscionable conduct, breached the Australian Consumer Law and unlawfully benefited from the practice. Qantas denies those allegations and is defending the proceeding.

That context matters, but only up to a point. This judgment does not resolve those claims. Its practical value lies in how the Court approached customer communications, sender identity, privacy concerns, scam risk and data handling in a court-supervised notice exercise.

The first issue was the opt out notice. In a representative proceeding, group members are generally included unless they opt out by the deadline fixed by the Court. That means the notice has to do several jobs at once. It must explain the case and the recipient's choices, be accurate and fair, avoid misleading impressions, and work in the real world where customers may be wary of scams or confused by unfamiliar legal communications.

The parties identified several disputed points. The main ones recorded in the reasons were whether the notice email should come from an address ending in qantas.com, whether the notice should be displayed on Qantas' website, how distribution and enquiries should work, whether personal details such as booking references and cancelled flight dates should be included in the notice, and whether the opt out form should include confirmation of permission to opt out on behalf of another person.

Some of those issues were resolved without much controversy. Qantas agreed to display a link to the notice on the Travel Credits page of its website so recipients could check legitimacy. The Court noted that the parties were content to defer some mechanics about distribution and query handling for further conferral. On the permission point, the Court said there did not appear to be any real issue between the parties because their proposed forms were relevantly the same.

The live disputes the Court then had to determine were narrower but commercially important: whether the sender address should use the Qantas domain, and whether the notice itself should contain personalised booking information.

Justice Moshinsky approved the form and content of the opt out notice, fixed the opt out deadline at 4.00 pm AEST on 24 April 2026, and made detailed orders for distribution. The Court also approved the expert questions in Annexure C.

On sender identity, the Court rejected the applicant's proposal that the notice be sent from an email address ending in qantas.com. The reasons were practical and direct. First, the notice was not a communication from Qantas, so using a Qantas email address could give an incorrect or misleading impression that Qantas was the sender. Secondly, the Court considered there was a risk of confusion because the notice would appear without Qantas branding and therefore would not match the look of ordinary Qantas emails. Thirdly, using a qantas.com address increased the risk that group members would contact Qantas with questions about the proceeding when those enquiries should instead go to the hotline or the applicant's solicitors.

On personal information, the Court rejected including booking references and cancelled flight dates in the notice itself. It said some group members would be concerned to see personal and confidential information in an unexpected notice, especially where many would not know the class action existed. The Court was also not persuaded that including personalised information would reduce the risk of recipients thinking the message was a scam. Given a recent cyber incident relating to Qantas that was referred to in affidavit material, the Court said including that information might actually heighten suspicion. The Court also doubted that many group members would need that level of detail to decide whether to opt out.

The Court nevertheless approved a process that still used Qantas' records behind the scenes. Qantas was ordered to prepare a schedule containing, to the extent reasonably available or ascertainable, contact details for relevant bookings, booking references and flight cancellation dates. But that schedule was to be provided on a confidential basis to a third-party distribution agent, with express exclusion of disclosure to the applicant, Echo Law or any other third party. The distribution agent had to provide an undertaking to Qantas to comply with applicable privacy laws in an agreed form.

The orders also required the parties to agree a distribution protocol covering the identity of the distribution agent, an enquiries hotline, a no reply email address, the formatting of the notice email, the URL for the online notice and the dates and times for sending the notice. The notice was to be distributed by email where an email address was available and by SMS where a mobile number was available. The applicant's solicitors were also to host the notice on their website, Qantas was to display a prominent link on its Travel Credits page, and the notice was to be posted on the Federal Court website.

The annexed notice gives a good picture of the commercial setting. It tells recipients that they may be receiving the notice because Qantas' records show they are the primary contact for a booking on a cancelled flight where a flight credit was recorded. It also recognises that the contact person may not be the only person affected. A nominated contact person might be a group member, or might simply be the person through whom passengers or purchasers can be reached. The notice therefore encourages contact persons to provide a copy to relevant passengers and purchasers so they can consider their options.

The notice also explains the two basic choices. A group member can do nothing and remain in the class action, or opt out by completing the approved form and sending it to the Federal Court by the deadline. The form allows a person, with permission, to opt out on behalf of other passengers or purchasers on the same bookings by naming them and confirming permission.

Importantly, the notice says this is a Court-approved notice that is separate to, and not part of, Qantas' usual communications to customers. That wording aligns with the Court's refusal to let the communication appear to come from Qantas. The Court was trying to make the source of the message accurate while still giving recipients ways to verify legitimacy through the applicant solicitors' website, Qantas' Travel Credits page and the Federal Court website.

The Court also made some drafting choices that show how carefully these notices are managed. For example, the reasons explain that information about whether unused credit remained outstanding was removed from the schedule requirements because that information could change over time and quickly become out of date. The Court also adjusted wording in the notice to avoid giving recipients a possibly inaccurate impression about eligibility for future benefits. That is a reminder that even seemingly small wording choices can matter in a mass notice process.

This case is useful because it shows the Court treating communication design as a legal and operational issue, not just an administrative one. A notice can be genuine and still be poorly designed. If the sender identity is wrong, if the branding creates the wrong impression, or if the message contains more personal information than necessary, recipients may distrust it, ignore it, or send enquiries to the wrong place. That can create delay, confusion, privacy concern and reputational risk.

The decision also reflects a practical data minimisation approach. Qantas was required to provide detailed information for distribution purposes, but the Court did not allow that information to be inserted into the notice itself. Instead, the data sat in the background with a controlled third-party process and privacy undertaking. For businesses, that is a useful model when legal rights need to be communicated to a large customer base without unnecessarily exposing personal information.

The scam-risk context is especially important. The Court did not accept the idea that more personalised data automatically makes a message look more legitimate. In some settings, especially after a cyber incident or where customers are already on alert, detailed personal information in an unexpected message may make the communication look less trustworthy. Businesses should test notice design against how a cautious recipient is likely to react, not just against what seems administratively convenient.

Finally, this judgment shows the limits of what can be taken from an interlocutory ruling. The Court approved process and expert questions for an initial trial. It did not decide whether Qantas breached the law, whether group members suffered compensable loss, or whether any enrichment claim will succeed. Businesses should therefore use the case as guidance on notice design and data handling, not as a final statement on the underlying consumer law issues.

The second part of the judgment approved questions for expert witnesses with expertise in economics and or forensic accounting. Those questions were directed to the applicant and the sample group members who were to be the subject of the initial trial, rather than all group members. The approved questions asked what amount, if any, would compensate each of them for being held out of money paid to Qantas, whether there was a difference between the value of a refund and the value of a flight credit over time, whether any difference depended on changing contractual terms including the removal of expiry dates from 31 August 2023, and by what amount, if any, Qantas was enriched by use of the money paid.

For business readers, this part of the decision shows how courts can separate liability questions from loss and valuation questions. Even before the merits are decided, the Court may define the economic issues that experts will need to address and may limit those questions to sample claimants for an initial trial. That can shape the cost, scope and strategy of a class action long before any final judgment.

The procedural timeline in the orders is also worth noting. Qantas was required to prepare the schedule by 31 October 2025. By 3 November 2025 it had to confirm the number of bookings and unique contact details to the applicant's solicitors, without disclosing the details themselves. The parties then had until 21 November 2025 to agree the distribution protocol, and Qantas had until 28 November 2025 to provide the schedule confidentially to the distribution agent. Distribution of the notice was to occur between 28 January 2026 and 27 February 2026, with the opt out deadline fixed at 24 April 2026.

Those dates underline that notice design is not an afterthought. It requires planning, data preparation, privacy controls, vendor arrangements, website updates and customer support channels, all under court supervision.

This page is based on the Federal Court orders, annexures and the reasons that are publicly available for Haverkort v Qantas Airways Limited [2025] FCA 1147, dated 18 September 2025. The available reasons clearly support the procedural points explained above, including the Court's approach to sender identity, website verification, data minimisation, scam-risk concerns and the approved expert questions.

The publicly available reasons are truncated. Because of that, this page stays tightly focused on what can be stated with confidence from the visible judgment material. It should be read as a careful case note on the procedural ruling, not a complete account of the broader class action or a full analysis of the underlying consumer law and privacy issues.