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From Ironsider, via the Oz:

Anger at lack of action on airfares



Emma Harman at Mount Isa. Picture: Ruth Gear

• ROBYN IRONSIDE
  AVIATION WRITER
  @ironsider
  

Hopes a Senate inquiry would deliver much-needed relief from exorbitant airfares in regional Australia have been dashed by the final report.

The Rural and Regional ­Affairs and Transport References Committee found airfares to regional Australia were among the highest in the world, to the detriment of residents.

But the high prices were found to be justified by “economies of scale” and the fact the cost of aircraft operations had to be distributed across fewer people.

Mount Isa resident Emma Harman, whose husband Sean died in a car crash she blames on the high cost of airfares on ­regional routes, said the final report was “limp”.

“I’m not sure how they could form the view there wasn’t price gouging (by airlines),” Ms Harman said.

“It looks like price gouging from our perspective as consumers when a 2½-hour flight from Mount Isa to Brisbane costs three or four times as much as a 2½-hour flight from Brisbane to Melbourne.”

She said the recommendation to have the Productivity Commission conduct its own ­inquiry into how domestic fares were determined on regional routes seemed like buck-passing.

“It seems a bit limp and ineffective,” Ms Harman said.

Cloncurry resident Hamish Griffin was hoping to see the ­report recommend more regulated air routes and a cap on airfares.
“There doesn’t seem to be much focus at all on fares in the final report,” Mr Griffin said.

Winton Shire Mayor Gavin Baskett said he was disappointed the Senate committee was “just going to handball” the issue on to the Productivity Commission.

“It’ll just be another round of meetings and discussions. There doesn’t seem to be any light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.

Member for Traeger Robbie Katter, whose seat is based on Mount Isa, said there did not seem to be a political will to tackle the airlines on the issue of exorbitant regional airfares.

“The presumption is the Productivity Commission has more teeth in terms of extracting information from the airlines,
hence that’s a starting point to try and fix the problem,” Mr Katter said of the recommendation for a further inquiry.

MTF...P2