In a surprise development the regional airline inquiry has scheduled another hearing for April 1.
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The operation, regulation and funding of air route service delivery to rural, regional remote communities inquiry is meeting in Old Parliament House Canberra and will hear from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission along with two federal departments - the Department of Home Affairs and the Department of Infrastructure, Regional Development and Cities.
The ACCC will be represented by its general manager, infrastructure and transport, the Department of Home Affairs will have its secretaries dealing with aviation and air cargo security take the stand, while the Infrastructure department will be represented by its experts in the field of aviation policy, trad and market policy and aviation statistics.
Cloncurry cheaper fares advocate Hamish Griffin who attended the recent hearings in Brisbane and Darwin said he could not make the Canberra hearing saying he was not expecting this hearing.
"It's interesting that they haven't included CASA Civil Aviation Safety Authority)," Mr Griffin said.
The Senate inquiry is scheduled to report back to parliament by June 27, 2019.
Meanwhile the transcript of the Qantas hearing in Darwin has been loaded into Hansard.
Qantas domestic CEO Andrew David admitted there was a view that residents in remote regional communities have to pay a lot to travel but said they took three major actions to address the problem.
The first was residents' fares, introduced to Mount Isa and Cloncurry in November 2017.
"Our estimation is that there have been in total 120,000 trips a year out of the 13 communities and the 17 routes that our resident fares program covers," Mr David said. "To date we have seen 12,000 trips taken under the resident fares program. If it continues to track like it is, we estimate that by the end of this year that will increase to 36,000, which is one-third of all of those trips."
The second was looking at what costs are higher in regional markets than other markets.
"The cost of fuel is higher. Airport charges are higher. And security charges are higher and growing," Mr David said. "The third thing is that, in markets where there is opportunity to stimulate demand through tourism, they are things that we all need to work together on."
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