Six years after Australian airline Qantas illegally terminated the employment of 1,820 ground handling and fleet presentation staff at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, hundreds of those workers are still waiting to access their share of a $35 million court-ordered compensation payout. On Thursday, Federal Court Justice Michael Lee publicly condemned the extended administrative and legal delays that have left former employees facing severe financial strain, worsening mental health outcomes, and even relationship breakdowns as they fight for money they were awarded years ago.
The long-running dispute traces back to 2020, when Qantas cut thousands of frontline ground roles amid widespread international and domestic travel shutdowns. The Transport Workers Union (TWU) launched a four-year legal battle against the airline over the terminations, which ultimately resulted in a landmark 2024 ruling that imposed the largest corporate employer penalty in Australian history, with Qantas ordered to pay $120 million in total compensation to affected workers, $35 million of which is earmarked for direct worker payouts.
For months, the distribution process was bogged down in a complex, slow-moving administrative framework designed to calculate individual payouts based on both economic and non-economic harm. To assess non-economic damages, workers were asked to complete an online psychiatric survey to categorize their harm across six intensity bands. Around 600 workers were then required to attend follow-up independent medical examinations. But by mid-2026, a reviewing barrister found that 111 of the 600 completed examination reports lacked sufficient detail to approve payouts, prompting the settlement administrator to order all incomplete cases to undergo repeat examinations. It was not until July 2026 that Justice Lee was first notified of the crippling delays that had halted the payout process.
In court on Thursday, Justice Lee harshly criticized both the settlement administrator and Maurice Blackburn Lawyers, the firm representing the workers, for failing to bring the issue to the court for guidance far earlier. He noted that many affected workers have been left in desperate financial straits, with some older workers who were terminated in their 60s facing permanent unemployment with no alternative income sources to replace their Qantas careers. “It has gone on for too long,” Justice Lee told the court. “It is unfair for the workers to wait any longer than absolutely necessary.”
A 43-year-old former Qantas worker addressed the court in person on Thursday, arguing that the fastest and fairest path forward was to split the remaining payout fund equally across all affected workers. After hearing arguments, Justice Lee ruled that the entire $35 million settlement would be reallocated based on each worker’s tenure with Qantas prior to their illegal termination. He explained that this approach prioritizes longer-serving older workers, who are far less likely to secure new comparable employment than younger workers in their 30s, while eliminating the drawn-out individual assessment process that caused months of costly delays. “The realistic choice is approximate methods that are prompt,” Justice Lee stated, adding that he was drawing a “line in the sand” to finally end the workers’ wait for compensation.