Australia’s largest journey agent has blamed a authorities choice to dam extra flights into Australia for the price of air journey.
Flight Centre has launched an promoting marketing campaign in opposition to the Commonwealth’s transfer to dam Qatar Airways from including extra flights into Australia.
The federal authorities mentioned its choice to dam the airline from including 21 weekly flights into Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane was within the “national interest” as the brand new flights might threaten Qantas’ viability.
According to the federal government, lowered airfares might influence Australia’s nationwide provider within the medium to long run.
This monetary 12 months, Qantas posted its first worthwhile outcome since FY2019, reporting a record-breaking $2.47bn in underlying revenue.
Flight Centre boss Graham Turner mentioned it was “pretty obvious” Australian airways don’t have the capability to satisfy demand, resulting in costly airfares for on a regular basis Aussies and vacationers coming into the nation.
“We think the capacity is at about 75 per cent internationally and obviously the demand is enormous and airfares are too expensive,” he advised Weekend Today.
“Lots of people can‘t afford those sorts of airfare prices. There are some good specials around but on average they are about 40 or 50 per cent more expensive than pre-Covid and this is important to Australia.”
The travel agent has begun rolling out advertisements urging the government to let the Qatar flights in.
“This decision just doesn‘t stack up, there’s no logic to it,” Graham mentioned.
The shopper watchdog has additionally weight in on the talk, with the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC) head Gina Cass-Gottlieb saying she would have “welcomed” Qatar’s growth and that it could have lowered costs.
Ms Cass-Gottlieb advised ABC radio it was tough to pin down precisely how a lot airfares would have gone down, however referred to Virgin Australia’s estimate of a 40 per cent reduce.
The ACCC introduced final week that it could pursue Qantas in court docket over “ghost flights” it allegedly bought to clients when it had already cancelled them in its system.
The shopper watchdog alleges that Qantas saved promoting tickets for greater than 8000 flights set to depart between May and July 2022, with the airline promoting seats for a median of greater than two weeks regardless of figuring out it had cancelled them.
“The ACCC has conducted a detailed investigation into Qantas’ flight cancellation practices. As a result, we have commenced these proceedings alleging that Qantas continued selling tickets for thousands of cancelled flights, likely affecting the travel plans of tens of thousands of people,” Ms Cass-Gottlieb mentioned.
“We allege that Qantas’ conduct in continuing to sell tickets to cancelled flights, and not updating ticketholders about cancelled flights, left customers with less time to make alternative arrangements and may have led to them paying higher prices to fly at a particular time not knowing that flight had already been cancelled.”
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
