Cunningham: Territorians are being fleeced on flight prices

It’s hard to believe, but when Tiger first entered the Darwin market you could sometimes score a flight to Melbourne or Brisbane for under 10 bucks. Territorians are being fleeced on flight prices, and it needs serious scrutiny, writes Matt Cunningham.

Aerial view of the Darwin Airport and resort. November 23, 2023. Picture: Sierra Haigh

On the I Love Darwin Facebook page last week, a bloke called Wayne who’s thinking about moving up from the Gold Coast, wanted to know the pros and cons of our great city.

There was plenty of advice, much about the weather and how to stay cool and dry in a natural sauna.

And a few tips about the kind of outlook on life you might need to survive as a long-term Territorian.

“Don’t bring any s--t attitude with you,” one bloke wrote in response.

“Yes I’ve lived on the Goldy,” wrote another.

“I miss traffic and the fake people.”

But all jokes aside, there was also a common theme among the few negatives offered about living in the Top End.

It was the cost of airfares.

The cost of flying in and out of the Territory is absurd.

It’s become more than a headache.

It’s now an issue that’s having a major impact on our economy, tourism and our ability to attract and retain residents.

Tiger Airways flight attendants on the tarmac at Hobart Airport. Picture: MATHEW FARRELL

Two days ago I conducted an experiment.

What if I needed to fly to Melbourne this weekend at the last minute. What would it cost? The cheapest flight I could find was with “budget” airline Jetstar, departing at 12:55am on Saturday, for $747 one way.

Flying back I could still get a flight at 8:45pm on Sunday night for $570.

That’s more than $1300 return for a four-and-a-half hour flight.

Take a family of four and you’re looking at more than five grand for the weekend.

Yet when I plugged in the cost of return flights from Perth to Melbourne for the same time period, I could still get Jetstar tickets for less than $350 each way on flights leaving at times that still allow you to feel like a human when you get off at the other end.

We’re being fleeced.

We have been for a long time.

And it seems little is being done about it.

There are plenty of excuses offered. A lack of demand, high airport costs and the impact of Defence work on the Darwin Airport runway among them.

But none of that justifies the fact a four-and-a-half hour flight from Darwin to Melbourne costs double that of a six-hour flight from Perth.

A Jetstar Airbus A320 commercial passenger jet plane comes into land at the Cairns International Airport. Picture: Brendan Radke

What’s really killing us is a lack of competition.

For most trips we have at best three realistic options, and two of those are controlled by the one company.

As former Australian Financial Review journalist Joe Aston told Four Corners on Monday night, Qantas and its offshoot Jetstar have both ends of the market cornered.

“If Qantas and Jetstar were competing with each other instead of using each other at both ends of the market to sort of manoeuvre, I think we’d have a very, very, different set of outcomes,” he said.

“But of course, Qantas will be forced to divest Jetstar on the day that pigs fly over the east-west runway.”

The hopeless lack of competition is hurting the hip pockets of many Territorians.

It wasn’t that long ago there were other options – most notably Tiger Airways – putting serious downward pressure on prices.

It’s hard to believe now, but when Tiger first entered the Darwin market you could sometimes score a flight to Melbourne or Brisbane for under 10 bucks.

The competition forced Jetstar to reduce its prices.

For a while Jetstar even used Darwin as a hub for its flights into southeast Asia.

This meant you could not only get a cheap flight to the east coast capitals, you could also fly direct at a reasonable price to Bali, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Singapore and Ho Chi Minh City.

This week Qatar Airways announced it intends to acquire a 25 per cent stake in Virgin Australia.

Darwin International Airport is hopeful this will lead to increased flight capacity, expanded route networks and improved travel options for passengers flying to and from the Territory. We can only hope.

If it doesn’t, some kind of intervention might be needed to ensure Territorians are not being robbed blind.

There’s a federal election due by May next year and both Territory seats could be in play. A candidate who’s serious about fixing this problem might find themselves on a regular – and hopefully not too expensive – flight to Canberra.