Women can’t sue Qatar Airways over invasive strip search, court finds

In a decision handed down on Wednesday, Justice Halley said: “Were [the relevant] applicants able to bring a claim against Qatar Airways under the Montreal Convention? I’ve concluded that the answer to that question must be no.”

But the women, represented by Marque Lawyers, were given leave to reformulate their case against MATAR, the operator of Hamad International Airport, and Justice Halley suggested that they would need to limit the case to claims against its employees and contracted security agents, as well as nurses who carried out the procedures.

‘Adequately dealt with’

During a Senate inquiry into Qatar’s request for more flights, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials said they were satisfied that the strip searches had been adequately dealt with by Qatari officials, who sanctioned the police responsible.

Qantas vehemently opposed Qatar’s expansion, which would have boosted competition on its most profitable route to London and could have reduced airfares to Europe by as much as 40 per cent.

Qantas said granting Qatar an extra daily flight into Perth, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne would “distort” the aviation market and would be “unprecedented”. But Ms King has since announced the quadrupling of a bilateral deal with Turkish Airlines, which has an interline agreement with Qantas on flights to Singapore.

Turkish Airlines eventually won the right to fly 21 flights per week to Australia with immediate effect in December, increasing to 28 this year and 35 by 2025, potentially overtaking Qatar, which has 28 flights a week to major airports.

While Qatar is making full use of its flight rights to major cities and operates to second-tier cities such as Adelaide, Turkish Airlines flies to Melbourne thrice a week and is yet to confirm when it will start flying to Sydney.

The Australian government has also expanded an agreement to allow SriLankan Airlines an increase from 14 to 42 flights a week by 2025. SriLankan flies just three times a week to Sydney and daily to Melbourne.