Sydney Airport urges intervention on ‘slot-hoarding’
Domestic travel is being hampered by delays and higher fares at the same time as more international competition is pushing tourist numbers higher, Sydney Airport says.
The airport said 3.06 million people passed through in June, 89.9 per cent of the traffic numbers recorded before the COVID-19 pandemic. But Sydney Airport chief executive Geoff Culbert said the recovery in domestic traffic, which increased 1.2 per cent to 1.9 million – or 90.6 per cent of the June 2019 volume – had stalled.
Sydney Airport CEO Geoff Culbert says Chinese tourists are coming back. Brook Mitchell
“While June domestic… numbers were almost on par with June last year, international traffic is gaining momentum and was up 66.7 per cent,” he said. “Steep airfares and high cancellation rates on popular domestic routes are suppressing demand.”
The country’s largest airports have asked the government to reinstate the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s monitoring of the domestic aviation sector, which was put in place when Virgin Australia entered administration during the pandemic and Qantas was the only big player left in the market.
Mr Culbert said the government should act on so-called “slot hoarding” at Sydney Airport, blaming high cancellations for suppressing the recovery on popular routes. Slot hoarding, which Mr Culbert has previously raised as an issue, is where airlines take up excessive airport use rights to prevent other carriers from being able to compete.
“In the 12 months to June, passenger numbers on the Sydney-to-Melbourne route were just 81 per cent recovered compared to pre-pandemic levels, while numbers between Sydney and Canberra were only 64 per cent recovered,” Mr Culbert said.
“It will be interesting to see if
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