Qantas Offers Free Tickets to Grounded Fliers

Offer will cost troubled airline $20M
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 6, 2011 3:15 PM CST
Qantas Offers Free Tickets to Grounded Fliers
A man waits at the Qantas terminal at Sydney Airport for Qantas to resume flying in Sydney, Monday, Oct. 31, 2011.   (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)

You may be eligible for free tickets if last year's Qantas airline shutdown left you stranded, the BBC reports. Last November, Qantas grounded its entire fleet—and left travelers stuck in 22 cities—after a mid-air engine explosion forced an emergency landing in Singapore. Now the airline is offering free round-trip economy flights in New Zealand and Australia to eligible fliers.

"This ticket offer is one of a range of initiatives we will be launching as a way of saying sorry," says Qantas CEO Alan Joyce. The airline will fork over about $20 million for the tickets and plans to follow with special offers outside of New Zealand and Australia. The latest offer comes on the heels of more bad news for Qantas, which had to divert a Singapore-to-London flight to Dubai on Friday due to engine problems. (More Qantas stories.)

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