The Qantas Airways Limited (ASX: QAN) share price is down 0.7% amid reports that the airline has suffered a data breach with its app.
At this stage, the ASX travel share isn't certain if it has been hacked or not.
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Data breach on Qantas app
As reported by various media, including the ABC, the airline is investigating reports that Qantas passengers have been able to see details of other customers on their app, including the name, flight details and loyalty points.
The airline has confirmed it's investigating the issue.
The Guardian reported on a statement that Qantas recently released this morning:
We're urgently working to resolve the issue impacting the Qantas app this morning and we sincerely apologise to our customers who have been impacted.
We're investigating whether this issue may have been caused by recent system changes.
We recommend that customers log out and log in to their Qantas Frequent Flyer account on the Qantas App. Please also be aware of social media scams at this time.
We'll continue to provide more information as soon as we can.
The ABC reported that when one customer closed the Qantas app and opened it again several times, he saw a different customer's details every time.
What will this mean for the ASX travel share?
Qantas is still investigating what's happening, so it is too early to know.
Investors have sent the Qantas share price down 0.7% in morning trading. However, this comes at a time when the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) is down by 1.1%, so the airline's shares are actually outperforming the overall market right now.
Correcting "system changes" may be less problematic for the company than if there had been a hack.
This isn't helpful coming at a time when Qantas is already working on rebuilding its reputation following the COVID-19 period of weaker service levels, disappointing flight reliability and the issue of selling tickets for cancelled flights.
Despite the problems, Qantas said at the time of its FY24 first-half result that it was seeing "strong travel demand across the portfolio. Unit revenue is expected to remain stable for domestic and continue to normalise for international as market capacity returns."
That result saw underlying profit before tax fall by 13% to $1.25 billion and statutory earnings per share (EPS) fall by 4% to 52 cents. EPS fell less because of the ongoing share buyback, meaning profit is shared between fewer Qantas shares.
Qantas share price snapshot
Over the past year, the Qantas share price is down 13%, as we can see on the chart below.
