Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Recently I was approached by a constituent who had to change flights for a overseas family holiday. He made the changes through Flight Centre, the same travel agency through which he'd booked the tickets. In addition to the fare difference, he was charged a $1,350 administration fee for the two flights for his family of three—that's $225 per flight, per passenger. My constituent had no objection to paying the fare difference. But an additional fee of over $1,000 to change flights seems excessive to me.

When my constituent contacted Flight Centre and the airline, Emirates, to complain about the excessive fee both claimed that the other was responsible for levying it. My office tried to query the fee on his behalf with both companies. Flight Centre told my office—with my constituent's permission—that they passed on the fare and tax difference calculated by Emirates but did not impose any fees of their own to make changes to the tickets. Emirates claimed that they do not make changes to travel agency issued tickets and recommended taking the matter up with—guess who?—Flight Centre.

I made further inquiries to Emirates to clarify their answer, but then they said they were restricted from discussing the matter with anyone other than the passenger—whom they had actually dismissed previously. This was despite my office having already checked their requirements for being given the authority to make inquiries on my constituent's behalf.

I'm sure you've heard the quote, 'success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan.' That certainly seems to be case when it comes to charging excessive fees for flight changes. Whether it's Emirates or Flight Centre, one of these companies lacks the competence to honestly and openly reveal, to my constituent and my office, that they were responsible for charging this exorbitant fee—not good enough!