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No winners in Qantas, union’s costs fight
After a failed dispute over which pilots should be assigned to a lucrative aircraft, Qantas and the union for long-haul pilots had their costs applications knocked back by the Federal Court.
Naomi Neilson
Two months after Qantas and the Australian and International Pilots Association (AIPA) both emerged from a Federal Court of Australia dispute with a loss, Justice Scott Goodman has dismissed separate applications to recoup some of their legal costs.
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Qantas and the union clashed over the airline’s request to assign 20 second officers under training (SOT) to the lucrative A380 aircraft, which would have seen more senior officers overlooked.
In July, the claim the AIPA was being unreasonable was tossed out, as was the union’s cross-claim that Qantas could only allocate SOTs after certain stages of their training had been completed.
In the costs application, AIPA sought indemnity costs from midday on 11 July 2023 because it contended the airline’s failure to accept an offer to settle was an “unreasonable act or omission … that caused AIPA to incur costs from that time”.
In the letter, AIPA offered for both proceedings to be discontinued and for each party to bear their own legal costs.
AIPA drew Qantas’ attention to the supposed “weakness” of its case and argued the continuation of proceedings would be a “waste of time and the resources of the court and that of the parties”.
Qantas did not respond to that letter.
AIPA told Justice Goodman the letter was made at a stage of the proceedings where Qantas was “fully aware” of its issues and “was fully equipped to make an informed assessment” of the case.
However, Justice Goodman did not consider the offer that both proceedings would be dismissed as a “sufficient [reason] to render the non-acceptance of the offer an unreasonable act or omission”.
“Further, the case advanced by Qantas could not be regarded as one that should not have been pursued because it was unsupportable, nor ‘doomed to fail’ as suggested in the letter,” Justice Goodman said.
In Qantas’ costs application, the airline contended that AIPA instituted its cross-claim “without reasonable cause” and it was “brought, opportunistically, simply because Qantas had already filed its claim”.
Qantas also alleged the cross-claim was brought “in circumstances where the legal arguments … were misconceived”.
Justice Goodman was not satisfied the AIPA acted unreasonably.
“As is well-established, mere failure on a claim does not establish that the claim was instituted without reasonable cause,” he said.
Both applications for costs were dismissed.
The case is Qantas Airways v Australian and International Pilots Association (No 3) [2024] FCA 1092.
Naomi Neilson
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
You can email Naomi at:
