Qantas boss Vanessa Hudson urged to fix Perth flights dispute
The Western Australian tourism minister wants new Qantas boss Vanessa Hudson to sort out a long-running dispute with Perth Airport over when the airline’s flights will move to a new central terminal.
“The change in leadership at Qantas provides a fresh opportunity to bring a renewed focus to the issue,” WA tourism minister Rita Saffioti told The Australian Financial Review.
Vanessa Hudson, the new CEO of Qantas, is being urged to put Perth airport on her urgent to-do list. Bloomberg
“Consolidating services at the one location means better aviation capacity for Perth and WA – that’s good for the community, businesses and our economy.”
Perth has two international airport terminals: one for Qantas’s international flights next to Qantas’s domestic operations, and another terminal known as Airport Central on the opposite side of the airport runway (a 20-minute drive by car or bus) which is used by every other airline that flies overseas.
The state government and Perth Airport, whose top investors include the Utilities Trust of Australia and the Future Fund, have been pushing Qantas to move all its flights to Airport Central.
While the airport and airline are still negotiating over the costs of building a dedicated terminal at Airport Central (also known as Terminal 1) to handle all Qantas flights, Airport Central could theoretically manage Qantas international flights today, processing them through 24-hour biosecurity and border controls.
Qantas abandoned plans to add flights from Perth to Jakarta and Johannesburg in November from its own international terminal (known as Terminal 3) because of a dispute with government authorities over the cost and space needed to set up separate biosecurity operations that could monitor for
Read more on afr.com
