Ultimately, it’s incumbent on lawmakers to take steps to ensure this practice is discouraged.
Major airline faces backlash after using ‘ghost flights’ to exploit a legal loophole: ‘They weren’t even selling tickets’::Ultimately, it’s incumbent on lawmakers to take steps to ensure this practice is discouraged.
But wouldn't a more free market in this case let them do more direct flights to Melbourne without requiring the extra leg?
The extra leg is only added to get around a specific kind of regulation of the market (limiting how many flights they can do with Melbourne as a destination), it wouldn't exist otherwise.
In this case, Qatar Airways was making these extra journeys to avoid caps that allow it to make only 28 weekly trips to Australia’s major airports, which includes Melbourne. Landing at Adelaide Airport, which is not among that list, as the final destination enabled the airline to make additional journeys to Melbourne, as there were no limits on flights to non-major airports.
When you do this as a passenger to get a cheaper fare the airliner will ban you for life.
Wait, are you saying if you buy a ticket from Orlando to Las Vegas and the flight stops for a planned plane change in Atlanta, if you get off in Atlanta because that was your actual destination and DON'T continue on to Vegas you can get in trouble?
There is a bit of a scandal in aus at the moment about this. Qatar asked for more international flights (they back Virgin Australia, one of 2 major domestic carriers in Australia). Government said no, for undisclosed reasons.
The "national" carrier Qantas are scumbags with the government in their pocket and likely quietly lobbied against it, but also Qatar International Airport did this to Australian citizens not that long ago:
The airlines always complain about the cost of fuel, I'm surprised they can tolerate this. 18,000 ghost flights for Lufthansa? Just last month I sat in a 100 degree cabin for about 45 minutes before take- off because the APU needed to be turned on by a ground unit. The pilot said he called for the truck. It never came. Later I asked a pilot friend of mine and he said they can power that unit themselves but it uses fuel and the airline probably has a policy against it. Screw you Virgin Atlantic!