‘Frankly ridiculous’: Sims slams airlines over slot hoarding
The competition watchdog’s former chief Rod Sims says it is “outrageous” that Qantas and Virgin Australia have substantial shareholdings in the company that ultimately polices which airlines take off and land at Sydney Airport.
Speaking at a Senate inquiry into the Albanese government’s decision to block a Qatar Airways application to double its capacity to Australia, Mr Sims said the aviation sector had been subject to “poor public policy” for too long.
Rod Sims argued the government should initiate more bilateral air service agreements. Alex Ellinghausen
Qantas and Virgin were an “effective duopoly” that had been allowed to flourish because “aviation has been so neglected in terms of policy reform”, said Mr Sims, who served as chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission for more than a decade until last year.
The slot system at Sydney Airport was “frankly ridiculous” and “outrageous”, he said, because the two carriers, which have been accused of so-called slot hoarding, held substantial stakes in Airport Co-ordination Australia, which organises slots at airports across the country.
Both Virgin Australia and Qantas have denied they hoard slots – that is, they book excessive landing rights at airports to prevent rivals from competing.
According to documents lodged with the corporate regulator, Qantas owns a 41 per cent shareholding in ACA, and the airline’s finance and strategy boss Reed Tanger in on the ACA board. Virgin, meanwhile, has a 35 per cent stake in the company, and its head of network management, Matthew Yarrow, is on the board.
The remainder of the company is owned by Sydney Airport (10 per cent) and the Regional Aviation Association of Australia (14 per cent).
Mr Sims said the government
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