The big change needed to fix Australia’s air travel industry

Days of disruption at one of the busiest times of the year have raised questions about the resilience of the travel industry.

Days of disruption at one of the busiest times of the year have airports and airlines on the defensive and insisting the travel industry is not broken, but merely challenged.

Since Thursday, airlines have cancelled dozens of flights and delayed hundreds, due to airspace restrictions, runway closures and crew sickness.

As a result, some travellers have lost days from their holidays, and missed connections or significant events.

Australian Federation of Travel Agents boss Dean Long said for the most part the travel experience in Australia was “pretty good” but regulatory constraints on Sydney Airport needed to be urgently addressed.

Of most concern, was the rigid 80-flights an hour cap on Australia’s biggest gateway, which made recovery from disruption difficult.

Mr Long said Sydney Airport should be able to rebound quite quickly to get flights back in the air, but government regulations did not allow that to happen.

“We can’t keep having a handbrake on this type of activity and impacting people’s lives because it’s a bit windy in Sydney,” he said.

“We’re in 2023. That needs to be updated and reformed.”

Long queues at Sydney Domestic Airport on the first day of school holidays. Picture: Gaye Gerard/NCA Newswire

Mr Long wanted to see was a relaxation of the flight cap, so the airport could allow more flights to operate as required, rather than having to delay or cancel services to comply with the cap.

Sydney Airport chief executive Geoff Culbert was also firmly in favour of that regulation change, currently under review by the federal government.

“The hourly flight cap helps manage noise impacts on our local community, but the way it’s implemented means we can’t catch up following disruptions like we saw on the weekend,” Mr Culbert said.

“A catch-up mechanism after bad weather would mean fewer ruined holidays and family celebrations and, importantly, wouldn’t expose residents to a single extra flight than what was already scheduled that day. As it currently stands, if we have a few hours of bad weather, the impact can be felt for days.”

Beyond Sydney, other major airports said systems were working well with staffing levels back to full strength.

Brisbane Airport Corporation head of public affairs Stephen Beckett said most people were clearing security at the domestic and international terminals in under 10-minutes.

“While there have been a number of unrelated events impacting east coast travel over the past few days, inside our terminals passengers are moving smoothly, and we expect 1.5 million people through the airport these school holidays,” Mr Beckett said.

“We have restructured our rosters to ensure we have more staff on during the peak travel times, and our security contractor has successfully recruited and trained heavily in the past 12-months.”

Melbourne Airport was also seeing “low passenger wait times, and remained focused on maintaining and improving performance” said a spokesman.

“Despite increased school holiday passenger numbers last week, the maximum security wait time was seven minutes, with a two-minute average,” he said.

Airlines also laid claim to a much improved performance outside of issues beyond their control — such as runway closures and airspace restrictions.

A Qantas spokeswoman said when such disruptions occurred, their team worked hard to get everyone to where they needed to go.

“We know that delays and cancellations are frustrating for our customers, and we appreciate everyone’s patience and co-operation,” she said.

Virgin Australia, which was forced to cancel ten flights on Tuesday morning due to crew illness, said reliability was a “key focus” for their team.

“We have been operating at up to 100 per cent of pre-Covid domestic capacity for several months now, and we have hired approximately 800 team members across key operational roles to support the ramp up in flying activity since January this year,” said a Virgin Australia spokesman.

“During the holidays, our corporate team is once again supporting our guest services teams on the ground, to help our guests travelling through airports during the busy period.”

Mr Long said travel agents were still experiencing “an increased level of engagement” with clients due to disruption on the domestic and international front.

Much of that emanated from the lack of alternative services, in the event of flight cancellations.

“There’s still not enough supply and activity floating around in the system internationally and domestically when things wrong,” said Mr Long.

“It’s just harder to catch up than what it was (pre-Covid).”