Spat with Perth Airport blocking Qantas’s Perth-to-Paris plans

A multimillion-dollar spat between Qantas and a major airport is holding up the airline’s planned new route from Perth to Paris, according to CEO.

Qantas chief Alan Joyce has said a legal spat with Perth Airport has held up the airline’s plans for a historic new route for Aussies to fly direct from Perth to Paris.

The airline’s chief executive said legal action brought by the airport seeking millions in allegedly unpaid service fees from Qantas had made launching the new service “inappropriate”.

“We said we would wait for a year after Perth-London opened to see how it performed, to see if we could make money (and) we are at that stage now,” Mr Joyce told attendees of a leadership event in Perth today, according to The Australian.

“However we do have to approve new aircraft to do it and unfortunately while we have a legal case going on with the airport, which we do at the moment, it would be inappropriate. I don’t think our shareholders would be happy with us ordering aircraft to invest at an airport where we don’t have certainty about the future and about the charges.”

Mr Joyce didn’t directly comment on the lawsuit but said Qantas was being hampered by a general issue of being overcharged by airports for the use of their facilities.

A spokesman for Perth Airport denied Qantas was facing legal issues that stopped it from launching the Perth to Paris leg.

“Perth Airport has secured pricing agreements from 23 out of 24 airlines which operate at the airport, which is evidenced in our approach to pricing is both reasonable and fair,” he said.

Alan Joyce wrote to the Productivity Commission last year recommending independent arbitration. Picture: Mick Tsikas

In December of 2018 Perth Airport sued Qantas, alleging it had charged the airline $27.8 million to use the airport between July and October that year, but Qantas had only paid $16.5 million.

Mr Joyce called for an independent party to oversee the spat, what he called “last resort independent arbitration”.

Qantas claimed at the time that the airport was putting WA tourism at risk by increasing the cost of using Perth Airport by 38 per cent over a seven-year period.

A draft of the report from Productivity Commission’s report the into the economic regulation of airports, released in February, recommended against independent arbitration, saying airports don’t have a “systematic problem” but require “more scrutiny”.

Mr Joyce’s speech comes a year after Qantas launched a 17-hour direct Perth to London flight which according to Joyce has been a “huge success”. It’s had the highest customer satisfaction rating of any international flight and enjoys a 94 per cent load, well above the industry average of 80 per cent.

A spokesman from Perth Airport said they hope for a speedy resolution to the dispute with Qantas. The first hearing of the matter is not expected to be heard until the second half of 2019.

Mr Joyce attended today’s breakfast function flanked by heavy security, after a man who disagreed with the CEO’s public support for same-sex marriage smashed a lemon-meringue pie in his face in May last year.

The man was charged over the incident and pleaded guilty to damaging the lapel microphone Mr Joyce was wearing and, giving police a false name after the incident.