It's like Kickstarter, for flights. Everybody pools a bunch of money, if they get enough money the flight happens, if they don't the flight gets canceled.

No risk from the airlines perspective, they don't have to fly an unprofitable flight.

Did you pay money for specific time of travel? Haha jokes on you

Did you have your flight canceled with a full refund at the last minute, and then needed to buy a flight of a much higher price to get to your destination on time? Sucks to be you

But you know this is fair, as long as customers are allowed to get full refunds for flights they don't fly. I didn't feel like flying today it wasn't convenient, since I wasn't on the airplane I get a full refund right? That's only fair

if they didn't charge specific amounts for certain specific flights, charge for seat selection on said flights and give you an itinerary with a flight number, seat number, departure date and time maybe they would have a leg to stand on.

perhaps all flights should cost the same, seeing as apparently they aren't charging for flights....

If they can’t guarantee specific flights, customers can’t guarantee paying them money.

I mean this is perfectly reasonable, its why you can turn up at the airport 3 days late and get the next available flight to your destination, right?

Oh my god what the actual fuck

I don't understand how many business practices by airlines don't result in criminal charges. Selling so many tickets that you know you will occasionally fail to fulfill your contract should be fraud. Jail time for leadership and full reimbursement of all damages (e.g. private air taxi to still make to to the destination on time) would quicky make the airlines competent at finding voluntary agreements that make everyone happy.

Likewise, deciding that a flight isn't profitable and cancelling it - WTF. That's called making a bad business decision, you eat the cost. You don't just decide "eh, let's just not" and leave people stranded because it's cheaper.

It wasn't clear in the article - how much notice did the customers get?

They must think we're idiots, pretending there's any kind of uncertainty about the status of a flight they'd already cancelled.

Qantas. Qantas never crashed.