The New Aviation Industry Ombudsman: Here's What We Know

Airlines will soon be required to pay compensation for delayed flights.

On Monday 26 August 2024, the Federal Government released their highly anticipated Aviation White Paper outlining the path forward for Australia’s aviation sector. The White Paper includes 56 policies setting the direction for the industry, including the establishment of an independent Aviation Industry Ombuds Scheme and an Aviation Customer Rights Charter.

These initiatives will set out clear guidelines for how airlines must handle issues such as flight cancellations, delays and compensation. Here’s what we know so far.

What is the Aviation Industry Ombuds Scheme?

Replacing the Airline Customer Advocate, the new Aviation Industry Ombuds Scheme will cover both domestic and international airlines operating in Australia, as well as airports. It aims to ensure greater accountability from airlines, especially concerning flight delays, cancellations, refunds and compensation.

What will the Aviation Industry Ombudsperson do?

The Aviation Industry Ombudsperson will have the power to oversee and resolve customer complaints related to airlines and airports, potentially forcing airlines to compensate customers for delayed or cancelled flights. They will ensure that refunds are processed promptly where applicable.

In addition to handling complaints, the ombudsperson will publish reports on airline and airport conduct and make policy recommendations to the Australian Government to further protect consumer rights.

Aerial shot of planes at an airport — The Aviation Industry Ombuds Scheme will ensure greater airline accountability. (Image: Skyler Smith)

Why is the Aviation Industry Ombudsperson being introduced?

The Aviation Industry Ombudsperson is being introduced in response to growing frustration from Australian travellers regarding poor customer service, lengthy delays and difficulties obtaining refunds or compensation from airlines. It comes after increased scrutiny of airline practices and a push for stronger consumer protections.

What is the Aviation Customer Rights Charter?

The Aviation Customer Rights Charter, developed alongside the ombudsman, will offer a clear and accessible outline of passengers’ entitlements. This includes guidelines on when passengers are entitled to cash refunds, compensation for delays and cancellations, as well as outlining airlines’ obligations in other areas, like lost luggage and customer service standards they must meet. The goal is to create consistent and enforceable standards.

Plane on tarmac at sunset — The Aviation Customer Rights Charter will offer a clear and accessible outline of passengers’ entitlements. (Image: Rocker Sta)

Will it have an impact on domestic flight prices?

The immediate impact on domestic flight prices is uncertain, though airlines may pass the cost of compliance onto passengers. However, increased accountability could lead to a more reliable aviation industry, ultimately benefitting passengers by reducing the indirect costs of travel disruptions.

Will it improve airline performance?

Yes, the introduction of the Aviation Industry Ombudsperson is expected to improve airline performance by encouraging compliance with stricter service standards and increasing transparency in how airlines handle delays and cancellations.

Plane wing above the clouds — Domestic flight prices may increase. (Image: Tom Barrett)

How can passengers claim compensation?

Passengers will be able to lodge complaints through a streamlined process overseen by the ombudsperson. They will mediate disputes and enforce compensation when applicable. Further details on the claims process will be made available once the system is fully operational.

When will it be implemented?

The Aviation Industry Ombuds Scheme will be set up to resolve disputes between airlines and passengers by 2026.

Plane engine as aircraft flies above clouds — There has been growing frustration from Australian travellers regarding the aviation industry. (Image: Emiel Molenaa)

What does this mean for airlines?

Airlines will face stricter customer service standards and could be required to compensate passengers for cancellations, delays or other service failures. They will also be required to “show cause" for why flights are delayed or cancelled. Additionally, the Government will review its travel purchasing policies to ensure fairness and transparency in airline booking practices.

“We will also increase the transparency of airline performance, with more data on performance and competition to be published by the Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics (BITRE)," federal transport minister Catherine King said.

What are the airlines saying?

“We welcome the release of the Aviation White Paper and the opportunities it presents to improve regulatory and policy settings, ensuring all Australians continue to benefit from a competitive and sustainable aviation industry in the years ahead," a Virgin Australia spokesperson told Australian Traveller.

“We are closely reviewing the policy position on various topics and we look forward to working collaboratively with the Government and other industry participants during this process."

How does it work in the rest of the world?

In the European Union, aviation ombudsmen and strong consumer protection laws, such as the EU’s Regulation 261/2004, are already in place. This regulation guarantees compensation for long delays and cancellations unless caused by extraordinary circumstances.

In the United States, there is no standalone aviation ombudsman. Instead, airline disputes are primarily handled through federal agencies like the Department of Transportation (DOT), which regulates airline consumer protection, with rules on compensation for overbooking, mishandled baggage and tarmac delays. However, compensation for flight delays or cancellations is not as robust as in Europe, with airlines mostly determining their own policies.

Person looking at flight schedule in airport — Airlines will be required to “show cause" for why flights are delayed or cancelled. (Image: Erik Odiin)

Video credit: Visit Victoria/Tourism Australia

The Grampians just might be the ultimate antidote for the metropolis, writes one returning Aussie ready to disconnect from the modern world and reconnect to the Great outdoors.

There are no kangaroos back in Chicago: they’re all here in the Grampians/Gariwerd . In the heart of the Grampians National Park’s main gateway town, Halls Gap, pods of eastern greys are eating grass beside my parked rental car beneath the stars. Next morning, when I see the backyard of my rented villa on the edge of town for the first time, there are kangaroos feeding beside a slow-moving creek, lined with river red gums.

Five hundred metres up the road, 50 or so of them are eating by the side of the road in a paddock. I pull over to watch and spot three emus. Yellow-tailed black cockatoos fly overhead towards the tall green mountains just beyond town.

‘Kee-ow, keee-oww’… their calls fuse with the maniacal cackle of a kookaburra (or 10). Gawd, how I’ve missed the sound of them. Far above, a wedge-tailed eagle watches, and there you go: the ‘great birds of Australia’ trifecta, all half a kay from the town limits.

Exchanging city chaos for country calm

kangaroos near Halls Gap, Grampians National Park — The park is renowned for its significant diversity of native fauna species. (Image: Visit Victoria/Robert Blackburn)

I’ve come to the Grampians to disconnect, but the bush offers a connection of its own. This isn’t just any bush, mind you. The Grampians National Park is iconic for many reasons, mostly for its striking sandstone mountains – five ridges run north to south, with abrupt, orange slopes which tumble right into Halls Gap – and for the fact there’s 20,000 years of traditional rock art. Across these mountains there are more than 200 recorded sites to see, created by the Djab Wurrung, Jardwadjali and Gunditjmara peoples. It’s just like our outback… but three hours from Melbourne.

I’ve come here for a chance at renewal after the chaos of my life in America’s third-largest city, Chicago, where I live for now, at the whim of a relative’s cancer journey. Flying into Melbourne’s airport, it only takes an hour’s drive to feel far away from any concept of suburbia. When I arrive in Halls Gap two hours later, the restaurant I’m eating at clears out entirely by 7:45pm; Chicago already feels a lifetime ago.

The trails and treasures of the Grampians

sunrise at Grampians National Park /Gariwerd — Grampians National Park /Gariwerd covers almost 2000 square kilometres. (Image: Ben Savage)

Though the national park covers almost 2000 square kilometres, its best-known landmarks are remarkably easy to access. From my carpark here, among the cockatoos and kangaroos on the fringe of Halls Gap, it only takes 60 seconds’ driving time before I’m winding my way up a steep road through rainforest, deep into the mountains.

Then it’s five minutes more to a carpark that serves as a trailhead for a hike to one of the park’s best vantage points, The Pinnacles . I walk for an hour or so, reacquainting myself with the smells and the sounds of the Aussie bush, before I reach it: a sheer cliff’s edge lookout 500 metres up above Halls Gap.

walking through a cave, Hollow Mountain — Overlooking the vast Grampians landscape from Hollow Mountain. (Image: Robert Blackburn)

There are hikes and there are lookouts and waterfalls all across this part of the park near town. Some are a short stroll from a carpark; others involve long, arduous hikes through forest. The longest is the Grampians Peaks Trail , Victoria’s newest and longest iconic walk, which runs 160 kilometres – the entire length of Grampians National Park.

Local activities operator Absolute Outdoors shows me glimpses of the trail. The company’s owner, Adrian Manikas, says it’s the best walk he’s done in Australia. He says he’s worked in national parks across the world, but this was the one he wanted to bring his children up in.

“There’s something about the Grampians,” he says, as he leads me up a path to where there’s wooden platforms for tents, beside a hut looking straight out across western Victoria from a kilometre up in the sky (these are part of the guided hiking options for the trail). “There are things out here that you won’t see anywhere else in Australia.” Last summer, 80 per cent of the park was damaged by bushfire, but Manikas shows me its regrowth, and tells me of the manic effort put in by volunteers from town – with firefighters from all over Australia – to help save Halls Gap.

wildflowers in Grampians National Park — Spot wildflowers. (Image: Visit Victoria)

We drive back down to Halls Gap at dusk to abseil down a mountain under the stars, a few minutes’ walk off the main road into town. We have headlamps, but a full moon is enough to light my way down. It takes blind faith to walk backwards down a mountain into a black void, though the upside is I can’t see the extent of my descent.

Grampians National Park at sunset. (Image: Wine Australian)

The stargazing is ruined by the moon, of course, but you should see how its glow lights up the orange of the sandstone, like in a theme park. When I’m done, I stand on a rocky plateau drinking hot chocolate and listening to the Aussie animals who prefer nighttime. I can see the streets of Halls Gap off in the distance on this Friday night. The restaurants may stay open until 8pm tonight.

What else is on offer in The Grampians?

a boat travelling along the Wimmera River inDimboola — Travelling along the Wimmera River in Dimboola. (Image: Chris McConville)

You’ll find all sorts of adventures out here – from rock climbing to canoeing to hiking – but there’s more to the Grampians than a couple of thousand square kilometres of trees and mountains. Halls Gap may be known to most people, but what of Pomonal, and Dimboola, and Horsham? Here in the shadow of those big sandstone mountains there are towns and communities most of us don’t know to visit.

And who knew that the Grampians is home to Victoria’s most underrated wine region ? My disconnection this morning comes not in a forest, but in the tasting rooms and winery restaurants of the district. Like Pomonal Estate, barely 10 minutes’ drive east of Halls Gap, where UK-born chef Dean Sibthorp prepares a locally caught barramundi with lentil, pumpkin and finger lime in a restaurant beside the vines at the base of the Grampians. Husband-and-wife team Pep and Adam Atchison tell me stories as they pour their prize wines (shiraz is the hero in these parts).

dining at Pomonal Estate — Dine in a restaurant beside vines at Pomonal Estate. (Image: Tourism Australia)

Three minutes’ drive back down the road, long-time mates Hadyn Black and Darcy Naunton run an eclectic cellar door out of a corrugated iron shed, near downtown Pomonal. The Christmas before last, half the houses in Pomonal burnt down in a bushfire, but these locals are a resilient lot.

The fires also didn’t stop the construction of the first art centre in Australia dedicated to environmental art in a nature-based precinct a little further down the road (that’s Wama – the National Centre for Environmental Arts), which opened in July. And some of the world’s oldest and rarest grape vines have survived 160 years at Best’s Wines, outside the heritage town of Great Western. There’s plantings here from the year 1868, and there’s wines stored in century-old barrels within 150-year-old tunnels beneath the tasting room. On the other side of town, Seppelt Wines’ roots go back to 1865. They’re both only a 30-minute drive from Halls Gap.

Salingers of Great Western — Great Western is a charming heritage town. (Image: Griffin Simm)

There’s more to explore yet; I drive through tiny historic towns that barely make the map. Still part of the Grampians, they’re as pretty as the mountains behind them: full of late 19th-century/early 20th-century post offices, government offices and bank buildings, converted now to all manner of bric-a-brac stores and cafes.

The Imaginarium is one, in quirky Dimboola, where I sleep in the manager’s residence of an old National Australia Bank after a gourmet dinner at the local golf club, run by noted chef and teacher, Cat Clarke – a pioneer of modern Indigenous Australian cooking. Just south, I spend an entire afternoon at a winery, Norton Estate Wines, set on rolling calico-coloured hills that make me think of Tuscany, chit-chatting with owners Chris and Sam Spence.

Being here takes me back two decades, when I lived here for a time. It had all seemed as foreign as if I’d driven to another planet back then (from Sydney/Warrane), but there seemed something inherently and immediately good about this place, like I’d lived here before.

And it’s the Australian small-town familiarity of the Grampians that offers me connection back to my own country. Even in the better-known Halls Gap, Liz from Kerrie’s Creations knows I like my lattes with soy milk and one sugar. And while I never do get the name of the lady at the local Ampol station, I sure know a lot about her life.

Kookaburras on a tree — Kookaburras are one of some 230 bird species. (Image: Darren Donlen)

You can be a local here in a day; how good is that? In Chicago, I don’t even know who my neighbour is. Though each day at dusk – when the kangaroos gather outside my villa, and the kookaburras and the black cockatoos shout out loud before settling in to sleep – I prefer the quieter connection I get out there in the bush, beneath these orange mountains.

A traveller’s checklist

Staying there

Sleep beside the wildlife on the edge of Halls Gap at Serenity .

Playing there

abseiling down Hollow Mountain — Hollow Mountain is a popular abseiling site.

Go abseiling under the stars or join a guided hike with Absolute Outdoors . Visit Wama , Australia’s first environmental art centre. Check out Dimboola’s eccentric Imaginarium .

Eating there

steak, naan bread and beer at Paper Scissors Rock in Halls Gap — Paper Scissors Rock in Halls Gap serves a great steak on naan bread.

Eat world-class cuisine at Pomonal Estate . Dine and stay at much-revered icon Royal Mail Hotel in Dunkeld. The ‘steak on naan’ at Halls Gap brewhouse Paper Scissors Rock , can’t be beat.

Dunkeld Arboretum in Grampians National Park — The serene Dunkeld Arboretum.

For Halls Gap’s best breakfasts head to Livefast Cafe . Sip local wines at Great Western’s historic wineries, Best’s Wines , Seppelt Wines and Norton Estate Wines .

two glasses of beer at Paper Scissors Rock in Halls Gap — Sink a cold one at Paper Scissors Rock.

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