Politicians fly a lot. So do many of the people they interact with on a daily basis: senior public servants, business leaders, lobbyists and so on. That might help in understanding the mess that is the Australian airline industry.
For most Australians, air travel is an occasional experience. We fly once or twice a year on average. It’s the most affordable and convenient way of covering our long distances but it’s often stressful and not particularly comfortable. For those outside the “Golden Triangle” (Melbourne-Sydney-Brisbane) it can be expensive and the flights we want can be hard to find.
And for millions of us, aircraft are a daily (and in some cities nightly) source of noise that ranges from annoying to measurably harmful. In Brisbane, for example, there are six or eight international flights every night, subsidised by the state government, which disrupt the sleep of tens of thousands of people.
From the perspective of our political class, air travel is a vital industry which should not be hampered by the kinds of constraints that are routinely imposed on other industries. Despite 30 years of private ownership, and a long history of mistreating workers and travellers alike, Qantas still receives the preferential treatment of a national flag carrier.
The news that regional airline Rex has entered voluntary administration, coming within a few months of the collapse of low-cost entrant Bonza, is no surprise to those who have followed the problems of the airline industry. Beginning in 2021, Rex attempted to break into the Melbourne-Sydney-Brisbane market with a small fleet of Boeing 737s. Unsurprisingly it ran into all kinds of difficulties – Rex most notably accused the Qantas Group and Virgin of hoarding of landing and takeoff slots, which they have consistently denied. This venture has failed, and it remains to be seen whether Rex will survive even as a regional airline.
Bonza did not challenge the duopoly directly, sticking to under-served airports such as Armidale and the Sunshine Coast. But Qantas defended its turf vigorously – it was even accused of poaching Bonza’s pilots.
When Bonza collapsed, there was no help coming from the federal government, by contrast with the $2.7bn subsidies given to Qantas during the lockdowns. As Rex appears set to go under, the federal transport minister, Catherine King, said on Wednesday, “We know that there will be some seeking of support from government and we will take some time to work our way through that with the administrators.”
The government is about to release an aviation white paper but judging from the draft green paper it is doubtful how much will change. This is, after all, the par outcome from the many reviews the current government has undertaken as a substitute for actually doing anything.
The most promising option for promoting competition, the abolition of cabotage restrictions on “foreign” airlines serving domestic routes, has been so far rejected. The fact that Qantas has offshored much of its engineering and maintenance and that Virgin is a subsidiary of Bain Capital do not appear to have reduced the appeal of economic nationalism in this case.
It was unsurprising then to see Steven Miles, Queensland’s then deputy premier (and now premier) dismiss concerns over aircraft noise as coming from an “inner city elite”. The residents of Cannon Hill (one of the worst affected suburbs, 10 kilometres from the Brisbane CBD) might beg to disagree. With a median personal income of $1,136 a week, and a typically middle-class occupational pattern, they are scarcely “elite”. Most would rarely, if ever, fly business class, let alone get an invite to the Qantas chairman’s lounge (unlike many politicians).
As regards noise “the Australian government is not considering imposing any additional constraints on airports such as curfews or movement caps” according to the green paper. Unless the major parties lose more seats to the Greens, life under flight paths is only going to get worse.
Australian aviation policy is best understood as a set of spheres that radiate outwards, with privatised airports and business class in general at the centre. One step further out is Virgin, followed by the shrinking group of domestic competitors. Ordinary Australians, in their capacity as air travellers, come next. The “elites” unfortunate enough to live under a flight path are in the outer periphery.
There is an analogy here with the resistance of state governments to congestion charges on travel to the CBD. The daily experience of politicians and the people they mingle with in the CBD suggests that such an idea would be too politically toxic to touch. But for the great majority of people in the middle and outer suburbs, who rarely if ever drive into the city, such a charge, which might be used to pay for improved public transport, would be quite appealing.
• John Quiggin is a professor at the University of Queensland’s school of economics
