Sky-high airfares are a low act

QANTAS has long been taking Mildura passengers for a ride.

Take last Sunday when my wife found herself stranded at Melbourne Airport after missing baggage check-in for an early morning flight to Mildura by two minutes. She was told there was no option but to buy a ticket for another plane, so she jumped on webjet to find the next flight home.

What she found was sadly pretty typical for Qantas flights to Mildura.

Last Sunday, Qantas prices for a one-way trip to Mildura ranged from $1326 to $2001. I took a screenshot on my phone in case Qantas ever tried to deny such enormous numbers were being quoted.

So, given we didn’t have a spare few thousand bucks lying around, my wife was forced to wait for 12 hours until she could get on a Rex Airlines flight for a couple of hundred dollars later that night.

My wife’s situation is sadly all too common for Mildura residents when dealing with Australia’s major airline.

This week, Qantas indicated it was on track for a record underlying profit of almost $2.5 billion for the 2023 financial year, eclipsing the airline’s previous best of $1.6bn in 2018.

The figure, as reported by News Corp, represented a $4.3bn turnaround on last year’s underlying loss of $1.8bn, and prompted union calls for Qantas to repay government handouts over the pandemic period.

Transport Workers Union national secretary Michael Kaine said the “obscene profit forecast was a result of Qantas management bleeding dry workers, passengers and taxpayers”.

Last month, Mildura councillor Mark Eckel called out Qantas for its “outlandish prices” on Mildura routes.

Cr Mark Eckel said it appeared the airline knew that corporate travellers would often book late for business trips, were willing to pay anything, and that Qantas could be taking advantage of this.

“I believe that, going by stats of days gone by, corporates make up a heavy percentage of the passengers that fly in and out of Mildura,” he said.

“I don’t know whether that’s the mentality being used to set outlandish prices but, if you put that into context and you’ve got a $1600 round trip, well you can get to most places in the world for $1600.”

For a town that doesn’t have a public train, it should be of major concern to the Victorian Government that the cost of air travel from Mildura to our state’s capital continues to rise.

Recent data from the Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics (BITRE) showed that quoted fares had almost doubled since the COVID-19 pandemic began. They rose from $234 in January 2020 to $418 in December last year.

The hope for Mildura passengers is the addition of new, cheaper airline services in and out of Mildura through Bonza will start to see those figures turn.

But other airlines must jump on board.

Setting sky-high prices for the big corporates ignores the little guys on the ground. And that’s just plain wrong.

What of the people who may have a family emergency in either Mildura or Melbourne?

Or for those who may miss a flight and have to find another to board that day? As we discovered last Sunday, you either pay an extraordinary price or remain stranded.

When Sunraysia Daily approached Qantas for an explanation on their pricing last month, a spokesperson said “like all airlines, our cheaper fares sell out first”.

It’s a garbage excuse, and doesn’t answer the question. We are talking about seats on a plane. If they are in economy, they are one and the same, no matter when they are purchased.

Qantas is a business, so we understand the top dogs at Qantas will be basking in their $2.5 billion profit, with all the attached personal bonuses that come with that.

But charging local people thousands of dollars to fly home in their own state? For an airline, it doesn’t get much lower.