King promises to deal with airline slot-hoarding ‘shortly’

afr.com:

Transport Minister Catherine King has promised to deal with anti-competitive behaviour by airlines at the country’s largest airport “shortly”, after releasing a report into aviation that acknowledges competition concerns but provides little in the way of solutions.

The government has been at pains to say a paper released on Thursday would deal with competition issues, given consumers are paying inflated prices for tickets following the pandemic and receiving poor service.

It is also under pressure because of its decision to block an application from Qatar Airways to add international flights.

Transport Minister Catherine King at a press conference on Thursday morning at Canberra Airport. Alex Ellinghausen

Amid concerns consumers are getting dudded by powerful airlines and airports, the so-called green paper’s proposed solutions only go so far as holding an independent public inquiry into domestic airfares, which was first proposed in 2019, and creating a customer rights charter.

It has also largely dismissed bids for more services on domestic routes by foreign players, known as cabotage, but said it would publish “a decision-making framework… to provide clarity on existing arrangements”.

The green paper is designed to spark discussion before a more fulsome policy paper to be released mid-next year. That “white paper” will set the policy direction for the aviation sector out to 2050.

But Ms King said cabinet would consider recommendations to overhaul how take-off and landing slots are managed at Sydney Airport separately to the discussion paper process, giving some hope that urgent issues around domestic market concentration might be acted on.

Former Productivity Commission chairman Peter Harris recommended to the former