Mount Isa City Council is demanding a better deal from airlines and governments to help stimulate the region’s economy and make air travel more affordable for local families.
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Mayor Joyce McCulloch said high priced air travel was holding back efforts to attract new jobs and investment to Mount Isa and isolating those who chose to live and work in the city.
“Our economy is worth $1 billion annually to the state and federal treasuries and yet grandparents can’t afford to visit their grandkids, and families can’t afford holidays without first driving 900km to Townsville,” Cr McCulloch said.
Council said it had prepared a detailed submission to the Senate inquiry investigating the operation, regulation and funding of air services to rural, regional and remote communities.
The submission follows a Mount Isa City Council motion at the Australian Local Government Association annual conference in Canberra in June 2017 calling for the federal government “to ensure the cost of airfares and transport in remote and rural areas provides economic and affordable access to all residents.”
Cr McCulloch said the excessive cost of air travel for Mount Isa residents and visitors was unjust and out of step with government objectives to develop northern Australia and grow regional economies.
“How can the Australian Government talk up the development of northern Australia when airfares out of Mount Isa are three times the cost of flights from metropolitan centres?” she said.
“It’s cheaper to fly internationally than it is from Mount Isa to Brisbane.”
Cr McCulloch said Qantas and other airlines profited from people’s stress and grief in emergencies, charging huge sums for people who booked late while the planes themselves were not optimal.
“Qantas aircraft used on the Mount Isa routes are often ageing and unreliable, and onboard food and entertainment can be rare luxuries,” she said.
The council’s recommendations are grouped around five themes: airfare parity, price monitoring, cost reductions, competition enhancements and subsidies.
They called on “governments and industry” to:
- Act to ensure airfares in regional; and remote Queensland are comparable in price to air services between the major metropolitan centres in Australia and along coastal Queensland
- Remove excise taxed on aviation fuel used by regional and remote airlines and exempting regional airlines from paying Airservices Australia charges
- Direct the ACCC to monitor prices at Australia’s regional airports and to approve the prices at the major airports for regional air services
- Allow overseas airlines to operate in regional Australia
- Establish an ongoing, formalised program of cooperation between Government and regional airlines to identify further opportunities to reduce airline operating costs.
Cr McCulloch said they also called on the Queensland government to expand its financial support for aviation in regional parts of the state.
“The Queensland government’s per capita expenditure on public transport in regional and remote Queensland should at least match their per capita expenditure in south-east Queensland,” she said.
“This is about a fair go for regional Queensland, plain and simple, and we welcome this opportunity to make our voices heard.”
