Boarding Now: Australia's Incoming Aviation Consumer Protection Framework

The consumer protection regime in a nutshell

On 29 June 2026, the House of Representatives passed a package of bills for an Aviation Consumer Protection Framework (ACP Framework) covering:

• the Aviation Consumer Protection Bill 2026 (ACP Bill);

• the Aviation Consumer Protection Levy Bill 2026 (Levy Bill);

• the Aviation Consumer Protection Levy (Collection) Bill 2026; and

• the Aviation Consumer Protection (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2026.

Collectively, the bills establish a framework built on four pillars that will regulate:

1. airlines operating domestic and international flights to and from Australia; and

2. airports, with the Government proposing to exempt those handling fewer than one million passengers per year.

Pillar 1: The Aviation Consumer Protections Charter

• The Charter sits at the centre of the ACP Framework and will specify requirements that airlines and airports must meet when offering or supplying regulated services.

• The bills specify a high-level framework for the Charter and grant the Minister power to determine its detail after Royal Assent (including the power to make Standards) through a separate consultation process. The Charter’s content, including the scope of the relevant airline and airport requirements, will not be known until that process is complete.

• The Charter is expected to cover minimum standards to be met by airlines and airports in relation to matters concerning disruption assistance, booking information, communication, complaint handling and accessibility. Notably, the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts (Department) has confirmed that mandatory compensation for delays (of the kind available to passengers in Europe and Canada) is not being considered at this time.

• Non-compliance with the Charter will carry substantial civil penalties. For a body corporate, the maximum penalty is the greatest of 30,300 penalty units (currently $11,029,200), three times the value of the benefit obtained or, if that benefit cannot be determined, 30 per cent of adjusted turnover during the breach turnover period.

Pillar 2: The Aviation Consumer Protection Authority

• The Aviation Consumer Protection Authority (ACPA) is a new regulatory function housed within the Department, responsible for monitoring compliance, enforcing the Charter and reporting publicly on sector performance. Separately, the Minister may apply to the Federal Court for an injunction requiring a member of the Ombuds scheme to comply with an Ombuds determination.

• The ACPA is designed to complement the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) economy-wide consumer protection role. The introduction of the ACPA reflects a broad view that voluntary industry arrangements have not delivered sufficient accountability, and that a dedicated sector-specific regulator is needed. Its role is expected to shift the current aviation complaints framework from one where outcomes are largely at the discretion of the airline or airport receiving the complaints, to one where systemic non-compliance will attract regulatory enforcement action and public reporting, with Ombuds determinations backed by judicial enforcement at the Minister’s initiative.

Pillar 3: The Aviation Consumer Ombuds Scheme

• The Aviation Consumer Ombuds Scheme (Scheme) is an external dispute resolution mechanism operated by the Aviation Consumer Ombudsperson (ACO) and modelled on established schemes such as the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman and the Australian Financial Complaints Authority.

• The Scheme requires an independent chair, equal industry and consumer board representation, mandatory membership for regulated entities (which includes airlines and airport operators), and free consumer access. Failure to join attracts a civil penalty of up to 1,500 penalty units (currently $546,000).

• Consumers with unresolved complaints may escalate them to the ACO, which can investigate, conciliate, and issue a binding determination on the regulated entity (though not on the complainant, who remains free to pursue other avenues). The ACO applies a 'fair and reasonable in all the circumstances' standard when determining complaint outcomes.

• The Scheme is designed to coexist with other complaint-handling bodies including the Australian Human Rights Commission, the ACCC, and state and territory tribunals.

Pillar 4: The Aircraft Noise Ombudsperson

• Although the Aircraft Noise Ombudsperson (ANO) sits outside the core consumer protection framework, it was included in this legislative package as part of the Government’s broader commitment to improve accountability and public confidence across the aviation sector.

• The ANO function will be relocated from Airservices Australia to the Department, where it will be performed by a Senior Executive Service officer. The ANO’s existing role reviewing Airservices Australia and Defence's management of aircraft noise, including their handling of noise complaints, is otherwise unchanged. 

• The rationale for moving the ANO to the Department is to foster greater independence of the function. The 2024 Aviation White Paper found that reporting complaints to the Airservices Australia Board, "creates the potential for conflicts in the [ANO's] role and can undermine public confidence in its findings and recommendations." Community advocates have welcomed the change, though several have argued it does not go far enough to address potential conflicts.

Five contested issues

The case for reform is grounded in scale. According to the House of Representatives Hansard, research indicates that more than half of Australians travel by air in any given year, half of which experience a disruption, and only a third of which are satisfied by how their disruption is handled. One in four passengers surveyed had a disability or medical condition, and two in five of them did not know how to access assistance. Compounding the problem, 79 per cent of consumers reported knowing little or nothing about the consumer protection rights they already have.

While the bills have attracted broad in-principle support, five key issues have emerged through the parliamentary inquiry and second reading debate. Many of these issues turn on detail that the bills leave to the Charter, Standards, rules and levy regulations, which will be made by the Minister after Royal Assent and are expected to be subject to further consultation. That consultation is likely to be a valuable opportunity for stakeholders to shape how the ACP Framework operates in practice.

Issue 1: Proportionality - Who bears the cost?

The ACP Framework is funded through annual levies imposed on regulated entities, which are designed to recover the costs incurred by government in administering the framework, principally the regulatory functions of the ACPA, including its regulation of the Scheme (the Scheme’s own operations are financed separately through contributions from its members). The Levy Bill requires the Minister, before levy regulations are made, to consider whether each regulated entity’s levy is ‘a fair proportion’ of the total levy, with the actual distribution left to regulations still to be developed. The Explanatory Memorandum indicates that factors such as passenger volume and regulatory activity may be considered, but the Levy Bill provides limited guidance on how contributions should be differentiated between airlines and airports.

Two distinct concerns have emerged from industry submissions to the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee (the body tasked with inquiring into and making recommendations on the bills):

1. Pass-through of levy costs to consumers. Airlines argued that a construct requiring industry to fund the regime in full would have direct flow-through effects to consumers through higher airfares and reduced routes. Qantas described the impact on low-cost carrier services as, "a deeply tangible consumer harm, not an abstract regulatory consequence."

2. Cross-subsidy by airport operators for airline conduct. Airport operators argued that most aviation complaints arise from airline-controlled matters such as ticketing, delays and baggage, meaning a flat levy would see airports funding a scheme driven largely by airline conduct.

The ACCC and multiple airport operators have recommended tiered or activity-based levies to address both concerns.

The Government has acknowledged these concerns and has confirmed that final levy design will be codified through regulations and subject to a consultation process.

Issue 2: Liability and operational control

The ACP Bill’s starting position on the allocation of liability is that the regulated entity is responsible for the acts and omissions of a third-party contractor engaged to supply a service connected with its regulated services, where the consumer does not pay the contractor directly and the service is not excluded by the rules. Both airlines and airports have raised concerns that the Charter compliance obligation contains no ‘reasonable steps’ defence, meaning an operator who has invested in robust third-party contractor management is treated the same as one that has taken no steps at all, at least for the purposes of establishing liability (although the Court may take the circumstances of a contravention into account in setting any penalty). If not addressed, as Australia Pacific Airports Corporation contends, this may disincentivise industry from investing in contractor governance and oversight.

A related tension arises from the ACP Bill's characterisation of aviation services. ‘Airline services’ are defined broadly, and ‘airport services’ are limited to services that consumers pay for directly (unless other services are prescribed by the rules). This creates gaps at precisely the points where airline and airport responsibilities interact; baggage handling, for example, is an ‘airline service’ under the ACP Bill, but the baggage belts are owned and operated by the airport. Virgin Australia submitted that this exposes airlines to liability for infrastructure failures entirely outside their control, while airports countered that the framework risks drawing them into complaints driven by airline scheduling and cancellations.

Notably, Airservices Australia, which manages air traffic control and directly affects on-time performance, is excluded from the ACP Framework.

Issue 3: The absence of mandatory compensation

Unlike comparable foreign regimes, the ACP Framework does not include mandatory financial compensation for consumers for flight delays and cancellations. In Europe and Canada, passengers are automatically entitled to cash payments when an airline causes a significant delay; in the EU, compensation is between 250 and 600 euros depending on flight distance and in Canada, between C$400 and C$1,000 depending on airline size and length of delay. Under the ACP Framework, an affected consumer must first complain to the airline or airport and, if the complaint is not resolved, escalate it to the ACO, wait for it to be assessed, and hope for a favourable determination.

The Government’s decision to exclude mandatory compensation from the ACP Framework was founded on research indicating that international schemes do not reliably improve on-time performance and may even incentivise airlines to cancel flights early to avoid delays. The Canadian experience was the cautionary example – by 2024, the regulator's estimated annual running cost had grown from an initial forecast of CAD $400,000 to CAD $30 million, with nearly 100,000 complaints now sitting in backlog. The Government has argued that the better approach is to resolve complaints early and efficiently through the ACO, lowering the overall regulatory burden and improving consumer experience.

However, the Government has notably framed the absence of mandatory compensation as a deliberate starting point rather than a permanent position. The ACP Bill includes a power for the Minister to direct the ACO to increase the monetary limits on claims and the ACP Framework is designed to allow compensation to be introduced without the need for new legislation to be passed if performance does not improve.

Issue 4: Delegation of consumer protection requirements to subordinate legislation

Perhaps the most unusual feature of the bills is that Parliament is legislating the penalty regime before the underlying consumer protection obligations are settled. The bills provide for substantial civil penalties: for a body corporate, the greatest of 30,300 penalty units (currently $11,029,200), three times the benefit obtained or, if that benefit cannot be determined, 30 per cent of adjusted turnover for a contravention. However, the Charter, which will codify the consumer protection requirements, is still to be determined by the Minister after the bills receive Royal Assent.

The Law Council noted that the ACP Bill, "delegates all substantive consumer protections to the [Charter] and Standards, limiting parliamentary oversight of the framework's core content". The Senate Scrutiny of Bills Committee raised further concerns that the delegated instruments could in effect modify the primary legislation, and that the information-gathering powers in the ACP Bill abrogate the common law privilege against self-incrimination (albeit with use and derivative-use immunities for individuals), a protection Parliament would not ordinarily remove without careful consideration and debate.

The Government’s answer is that flexibility is critical and a Charter made by regulation can be updated to respond to changing industry conditions or consumer expectations without requiring parliamentary intervention.

Issue 5: Exemptions for Regional Aviation Operators

The ACP Framework is designed to apply to Australia’s 14 largest airports and Western Sydney International, capturing around 93 per cent of passenger movements. The Government has stated its intention to exempt airports handling fewer than one million passengers per year, on the basis that smaller airports lack the resources and cashflow to absorb new compliance costs.

However, this exemption is not codified in the legislation. The proposal is to deliver it through ministerial rules issued after the bills receive Royal Assent, meaning the exemption for regional airports represents a policy commitment rather than a guarantee. Concerned stakeholders including regional airport operators have argued that the threshold must be legislated for, either in the bills or in binding instruments before their commencement. The Government’s position is that leaving it to subordinate legislation preserves flexibility to respond to changing circumstances.

Unlike regional airports, regional airlines are not proposed to be exempt from the ACP Framework. Stakeholders have argued that small carriers servicing exempt airports should be treated consistently with those airports, noting that for many regional communities aviation is the only connection to essential services, with no road or rail alternative. The Regional Aviation Association of Australia warned that even modest compliance costs on low-margin routes risk making some regional services financially unviable. The ACCC supported exemptions but recommended these be time-limited and conditional. The Government's position is that all travellers are entitled to consumer protection regardless of route size, and how regional airlines will ultimately be treated remains to be determined.

Where stakeholders can still shape the outcome

The bills establish the architecture, but the obligations that will bind regulated entities will be set out in subordinate legislation made after the bills receive Royal Assent. The Government has indicated that this subordinate legislation will be developed through further consultation. In particular, the following three issues remain unresolved and each presents an opportunity for stakeholders to shape the outcome through that process:

1. the content of the Charter (and any Standards), which will determine the actual obligations regulated entities must meet;

2. the levy regulations, which will determine how compliance costs are allocated between regulated entities; and

3. the design of the Ombuds Scheme, including complaint categories, jurisdictional scope, and how the 'fair and reasonable' standard will be applied in practice.

Making submissions as consultations open is the most effective way to ensure the framework's detail reflects operational realities.

In the meantime, regulated entities should review their existing contractor arrangements and internal complaint-handling systems to ensure that current practices are sufficient to meet the requirements of the ACP Framework once it commences.

This is the first in a series examining the application of the Aviation Consumer Protection Framework. The following articles will explore what the framework means for airlines and airport operators in practice, and consider other jurisdictional approaches.