Qantas announces 20 per cent airfare discount for Alice Springs residents on Adelaide flights

After a tough year for the town, Qantas has announced discounts for Alice Springs residents on flights to Adelaide.

Qantas has delivered an early Christmas present to Alice Springs residents, offering ongoing discounted fares to Adelaide.

Residents will receive a 20 per cent discount on all economy seats on every flight to Adelaide.

Qantas believes the Alice Springs can expect to pay a maximum of about $400 each way when booking a return journey.

The new discount, which started on Tuesday, is in addition to the reduced fares Qantas offers to Alice Springs residents travelling to Darwin.

The Qantas announcement came followed talks between Tourism Central Australia and the national carrier to boost travel options and opportunities for Alice Springs residents.

Tourism Central Australia chief executive Danial Rochford said the move could save Alice Springs residents and families hundreds of dollars.

“This is great news for Alice Springs,” Mr Rochford said.

“Tourism Central Australia has been advocating with Qantas about this for some months and we’re very excited Qantas has announced cheaper resident fares.

“Alice Springs is now the only regional that Qantas offers discounts to two capital cities.

Adelaide Entertainment Centre is an Adelaide landmark. (Photo by Morne de Klerk/Getty Images)

“Getting in and out of any regional community is critical and airfares are always hotly discussed by locals and it’s really good Qantas has listened to the concerns of the Alice Springs community.

“We said to Qantas that Alice Springs naturaly gravitates to South Australia for health or education or even just to get away on a long weekend.

“Having a resident fare and getting people down to Adelaide more cheaply is great for the community and strikes at the liveability of the town.

“We’ve had a lot of challenges over last few years and here’s good news to end 2022.

“The big thing to reinforce is it’s 20 per cent off economy fares which is going to mean a significant discount for people travelling to both Darwin and Adelaide. This is great news for our town.

“This means the community will be allowed to fly in and out of Adelaide much cheaper than we have seen. Qantas understands flying in and out of regional and remote communities is critical, that’s why they have resident discounts in place through quite a few remote and regional ports around Australia.”

Calls by Tourism Central Australia for the Territory Government to introduce a cap on fares between Alice Springs and Darwin have been rejected.

Tourism Central Australia chief executive Danial Rochford

In October, Mr Rochford and Alice Springs mayor Matt Paterson called for the Territory Government to cap fares from Alice Springs to Darwin, similar to a scheme offered by the Western Australian Government.

Chief Minister Natasha Fyles rejected that idea on Wednesday.

“It was decades ago that we saw government-owned aviation and airlines sold off and privatised,” Ms Fyles said.

“We certainly do what we can working with the aviation industry and generally it’s through marketing campaigns but we’re not in a position to set airline ticket prices.”

There was more good news for tourism operators on Wednsday with the latest tourism figures showing a significant turnaround in visitor numbers to the Territory.

The figures show 1.46 million visitors came to the Territory in the year to September 2022, a 9 per cent increase with a 33 per cent increase from interstate markets.

Territorians holidaying interstate increased by 4 per cent and locals holidaying in the NT increased by 21 per cent.

Airport Development Group executive general manager Ross Baynes said he was confident tourism would continue to flourish as Australia recovered from Covid.

Airport Development Group executive general manager Ross Baynes and Chief Minister Natasha Fyles

Darwin Airport has embarked on an extensive asset acquisition and upgrade over the past two years, including purchasing the Mercure and Novotel hotels and construction of a massive resort-style swimming pool.

“We’ve seen through our passenger numbers and occupancy levels at our two airport hotels that our group owns are at pre-Covid levels, which is just exciting and we continue to see forward bookings very strong coming into the wet season and importantly into our dry and peak season next year,” Mr Baynes said.

“From the Airport Development Group we continue to spend tens-of-millions of dollars with new pools, renovating the rooms that will create a world class product that will suit any travellers needs.”