Airport anger as Qantas refuses to pay higher fees

More airports attack Qantas over its refusal to pay increased charges that would help fund improvements at regional runways.

The Gold Coast Airport has plans for significant expansion

More airports have targeted ­Qantas for refusing to pay ­increased aeronautical charges designed to raise money for ­redevelopment and other improvements.

Several submissions to the Productivity Commission inquiry into the economic regulation of airports have called out Qantas for using its market power to resist higher fees.

However, the International Air Transport Association said the airports were charging ­excessively for services provided.

Queensland Airports Limited, which operates the Gold Coast, Townsville, Mount Isa and Longreach airports, said Qantas was unwilling to help fund infrastructure that benefited passengers.

Northern Territory Airports suggested Darwin and Alice Springs airports had been left more than $1 million out of pocket because Qantas refused to pay an increase in charges.

The QAL submission said Qantas was the “only major airline not currently in agreement with the redevelopment plan” at Gold Coast Airport to deliver a significant expansion in the size of the passenger terminal.

In relation to Townsville ­Airport, the submission said the terminal upgrade was “unable to move ahead because the Qantas Group has been unwilling to sign up to the $3 per passenger per trip increase in airport charges required to partly fund the re­development”. “The other major airline partner, Virgin Australia, agreed to the deal more than two years ago,” it said.

The Australian Airport Investors Group submission suggested the issue was more widespread, with Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide also in a stalemate with one airline.

“Several airports are now ­recording significant under­payment from this airline group, while the airline group continues to use the same airport services and refuses to support capital ­expenditure projects,” it said.

IATA took a different view, saying “profit-maximising airport operators were not delivering value for money in airport services”. From 2008 to 2017 aeronautical charges at Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth rose 58 per cent in real terms.

A Qantas spokesman said the Gold Coast and Towns­ville were proposing “gold-plated” upgrades, the cost of which would be passed on to customers as higher fees. It has said charges were already too high and it did not want to have to raise airfares.

Qantas and Virgin Australia are preparing submissions.