[Peetwo]

AIRLINE THIEVERY

“If he flew today, the cheapest flight from Mr Griffin's hometown of Cloncurry in Queensland to Darwin was $979 one-way on Virgin, with two stopovers and a total journey time of 25 hours”

The airlines have been bleeding passengers for decades. If you add up Cloncurry’s passenger head taxes, security charges and aircraft landing tonnage fees you will quickly see that the bullshit rhetoric that Joyce and Borghetti  have been spinning that airport fees are to blame for high airfares is a crock of shit. The airlines love gouging the Bush, particularly if only one of the two majors operate on that specific route.

https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-1...s/10902166

Update - Air Routes Inquiry: Public hearing Darwin 15/03/19. 

Via the DPS & the Hansard team today: https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/sea...nt=Default

Senator Patrick on the OTT proposed OTS security measures for some regional airports...

Senator PATRICK: In making this decision, if I recall correctly, the government called for submissions and the Office of Transport Security conducted a review. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to penetrate this, and that particular office can't be FOI'd. I can't even see any submissions into that. Did Qantas make a submission into that review?

Mr Mumford : I don't know. I can't recall—

Senator PATRICK: I would have thought that, with that sort of review that ends up with this sort of effect, it would have been in the interest of every airline to have said to the Office of Transport Security—

Mr David : I'll come back to my point before. What we do is engage with government to assess the risk factor, and they have got intelligence around the world and we have intelligence around the world. We're connected with other airlines. We'll work with them to assess whether the risk is real and we need to take action and then whether the action we're taking is the appropriate action to mitigate that risk.

Mr Gissing : When it comes to deciding whether it's the 20-tonne rule that impacts the Q400 now, whether it's 50 seats, which is a risk assessment based on people on board an aircraft or the seat count of aircraft, around the world there are very different approaches. We're not in a position and we do not have the expertise to make a determination about what the risk is and how that can be determined.

Senator PATRICK: And what the risk difference is between the 50-seater and the 39- or 34-seater.

Mr Gissing : It's related to mass. The 20-tonne rule is related to mass and what that mass could do versus seat counts. It's not our area of expertise.

Senator PATRICK: Last Friday I few to Moomba on an Alliance Airlines aircraft. It's a charter. For the record, I'm making sure that I pay for it. Santos took me up there. On the way up I went through airport security in Adelaide. I flew up to Moomba. I then toured around wells with all sorts of bad chemicals, explosive bits and pieces, tools and all sorts of stuff. I then came back, went to the terminal at Moomba and just walked straight onto the aircraft, after being checked to make sure I had a boarding pass, and flew back to Adelaide. I think it was a Fokker 70 which, I'd hazard a guess, has 120 people on it.

Mr Gissing : It's a significantly greater mass than our Q400, yes.

Senator PATRICK: Has anyone from the department, in the close engagement that you've had, ever explained how the risk associated with a flight like that is different to the risk from a Q400? Have they talked to you about that?

Mr Gissing : Not to my knowledge.

Mr David : No. I don't have knowledge that they'd done that. Trent, do you have anything?

Mr Mumford : No. We have raised our concerns in relation to the 40-seat rule directly with the department. Particularly in relation to the ongoing operational cost that will come with it. As you rightly said, the capital equipment is being funded by the Commonwealth, but it's the ongoing operating expense that we've got the real concern about. If you go back to slide 3, where we talk about the impact of airport security charges on regional flights, the security costs in some markets, like your Port Lincolns, your Whyallas or your Charlevilles, is going to be significantly greater—
Senator O'SULLIVAN: Because they can't amortise it across the passengers.
Mr Mumford : That's right.
Senator PATRICK: So it's when you've got a low passenger number.
Mr Mumford : When you've got a low passenger number you'll have a higher cost per passenger when it comes to condition of security.

Senator PATRICK: It's been put to me that in those sorts of places you'll have one flight a today but you've got to employ someone who twiddles their thumbs for the rest of the day. Alternatively, you have a morning flight and an afternoon flight and you're cutting across a normal eight-hour shift boundary, so you end up having to have perhaps two sets of operators. I don't know how you do it with ground staff. Is there some arrangement you have with ground staff where that cost is managed?

Mr David : What you're pointing out is where you've got low frequency. The problem you have is that you've got someone in there in the morning who's got to come back in the evening. When you've got high frequency, that cost is amortised across all of those flights, so in low-frequency markets, yes, it's a problem.

Senator PATRICK: Once again, for me, I need evidence that I can use and that I can lay out on the table in the Senate in the next parliament to show other senators what the cost of this is. The burden will then switch back to the department to try and reveal to senators exactly how it is that a 34-seater aircraft is much safer than a 50-seater aircraft and how a 100-seater jet aircraft coming from Moomba is somehow safer than a Q400 coming from Kangaroo Island.

Mr David : We can come back to you on all three things. We'll come back to you on our views over the size of the aircraft and associated security risk. We'll come back to you on impact on routes. We'll have to determine and work with you about what we can share, picking up on Senator O'Sullivan's point, but we'll come back to you on those. We will also come back to you with a view on your question around a TSA-style model. We'll come back to you on that.

Senator PATRICK: I understand there may also be difficulties with this, but at least give us some information about the consultation process you've been through with the department and the broad nature of those conversations—what has been traversed and what hasn't been traversed. You guys are the experts, and it would cue us to be able to say, 'Here are some things Qantas wanted to talk about.' We're not aviation specialists. We have a crack at these things, but you might be able to guide us better on what sorts of questions we might ask the department.

Mr David : We'll come back to you on all four points.

Senator PATRICK: Thank you.

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14
 Operational information of Qantas Group, tabled by Qantas Group at a public hearing in Darwin, NT on 15 March 2019.

MTF...P2