Domestic Australia-NZ air travel would be good for business: Alan Joyce

Making travel between Australia and New Zealand more like domestic travel can spur business traffic, says Alan Joyce.

Making travel between Australia and New Zealand more like domestic travel could spur business traffic, says Qantas Group chief executive Alan Joyce.

Qantas is moving to fill a gap with extra services between Australia and New Zealand as its joint venture partner, Emirates, said it was scaling back its operations in the sector.

“We think it should be treated more like a domestic market,” Mr Joyce told The Australian ­yesterday.

“It could significantly stimulate demand, significantly stimulate business traffic, that could be good for both local economies and that could be good for everybody, and tourism and everything involved in it.”

Mr Joyce said red tape was “a big tax and a big burden on the economics of the trans-Tasman. There are complexities obviously with getting a single ­immigration zone and a single customs zone, and that’s always been where this fell down in the past.

“But we ­encourage and have encouraged the government and the bureaucrats at both ends to try and progress this issue because it could be a significant benefit to both countries.”

The comments came after Qantas and Emirates detailed a shake-up of the trans-Tasman market as part of an agreement to seek approval to ­extend their joint venture until 2023.

The carriers argued that the changes played to their individual strengths and meant more ­options for travellers going ­between Australia and New Zealand to Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Observers have noted that Qantas, which recently reported its second-highest profit, is now in a much better position than it was when it first struck the deal with Emirates in 2012.

Emirates president Tim Clark said yesterday the joint venture had given Qantas “a great ­opportunity”, while Emirates was “as strong as we ever were” in the Australian market.

“What we’ve done to this market and what we continue to do, the strength of our brand in this market doesn’t give me any cause for concern,” Sir Tim told The Australian. “It’s been strengthened by working with Qantas.”

Sir Tim said Australia had been “a growth story for us” and Emirates would add a fourth daily flight between Sydney and Dubai from March next year.

“I think we can continue to see growth. We do see more production coming in, we do see Chinese carriers coming in. So we’ve got to look at all this.”

Aviation is a “tricky business to be in” because “there are so many external forces that affect what we do”.

As part of the shake-up ­announced yesterday, Emirates will stop flying from Melbourne and Brisbane to Auckland from March next year.

Instead, it will focus on its non-stop Auckland-Dubai service, while keeping its existing flights from Dubai to Christchurch via Sydney. It is also looking at other possible new ­direct services. Qantas, meanwhile, will put on extra flights ­between Melbourne and Auckland and Brisbane and Auckland, which will have an Emirates code, with some services to use larger aircraft.

The changes will be put to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission and New Zealand Minister for Transport as part of the regulatory filings seeking to extend the joint venture.

Mr Joyce said Qantas would boost capacity on both the Melbourne to Auckland and Brisbane to Auckland routes by 60 per cent, while the number of seats on the total trans-Tasman market would drop by about 3.5 per cent as a ­result of all the changes unveiled yesterday.

“The reason why this partnership is evolving is the market in the Tasman has had a lot of airlines enter the route over the last five years,” Mr Joyce said.