Qantas comes out swinging over Sydney Airport’s ‘slot hoarding’ claim against airlines

Qantas has hit back at Sydney Airport’s accusations of ‘slot hoarding’ saying the gateway is only trying to make more money.

Qantas has retaliated against Sydney Airport’s accusations of “slot hoarding”, claiming Australia’s biggest gateway simply wants to increase its own ­revenue.

Airport CEO Geoff Culbert has on several occasions accused Qantas and Virgin Australia of maintaining more slots than needed, in order to keep competitors like Bonza and Rex out.

Slots are the time windows allocated to airlines for flying in and out of Sydney. Under current regulations, airlines must use their slots at least 80 per cent of the time to keep them.

Mr Culbert said high cancellation rates and stagnant passenger growth on Sydney-Mel­bourne and Sydney-Canberra routes showed the major airlines were hoarding slots and they should give some up to allow others greater access.

In June, passenger numbers on Sydney-Melbourne were at 81 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, and Sydney-Canberra at 64 per cent. In the same month, 8.4 per cent of flights were axed on Sydney-Melbourne and 9.2 per cent of flights to Canberra.

Last week the man who created the slot management scheme, former Productivity Commission chair Peter Harris, said there was evidence of slot hoarding in Sydney but further investigation was needed.

Sydney Airport CEO Geoff Culbert has on several occasions accused Qantas and Virgin Australia of maintaining more slots than needed, in order to keep competitors like Bonza and Rex out.

Qantas and Virgin Australia have always denied the practice and on Monday the flying kangaroo went further, accusing Sydney Airport of being frustrated over lost revenue.

A statement issued by Qantas said cancelled flights cost the airport and the airline revenue — but in most cases, weather was the reason that services were axed.

“There does seem to be some misdirected frustration from Sydney Airport because they wish the system was different and they could unlock more revenue,” said Qantas Domestic CEO Andrew David.

“We understand that, but we’re not sure demonising your biggest customer is the way to go about it.”

Qantas also denied Mr Culbert’s claims that Sydney Airport wanted to be able to give more slots to international airlines in the interests of competition. The airline pointed out that international passengers were big drivers of airport revenue, spending money on retail, food and beverages at the terminal.

“Aircraft that operate international flights tend to be larger,” said the Qantas statement.

“The same slot that can be used by an aircraft with under 100 seats is worth a lot more to Sydney Airport if it is instead used by a 450-seat A380, because their revenue is largely built on a per passenger basis.”

Mr David said Qantas would much prefer to work co-operatively with Sydney Airport on the issue of slots, “especially after what the whole industry has been through over the past few years”.

“We support reform of the slot system to deal with the biggest issue all users face, which is the time lost to weather delays,” he said.

“No one controls the weather and the current constraints on Sydney means it’s hard to catch up. That drives delays and cancellations and means it’s less ­efficient for all carriers than it could be.”

The federal government’s aviation white paper, due for release next year, is examining the 80-flights-an-hour cap on Sydney Airport which makes it difficult to recover from disruptions.