Queensland opens the floodgates as Victorian operators get handouts – The Australian Financial Review

As Qantas CEO Alan Joyce lamented the plight of Victoria where the border closure has resulted in Qantas reducing its Sydney-Melbourne flights from five a day to three he urged the tourism industry to take heart from some green shoots finally appearing, such as the opening of the NSW/Queensland border.
Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce (centre) sits in the middle seat of a Sydney-Melbourne flight in June when the airline began rolling out its Fly Well program. Qantas Group
Mr Joyce said that over the past week, traditional holiday destinations such as Broome, Townsville, Cairns and the Gold Coast had done particularly well in fare sales run by Qantas and Jetstar.
“This strong demand is great for a place like Cairns, which had a lot of international visitors previously,” Mr Joyce said. “It’s important that we can get domestic visitors to go there to help that local community. Those local jobs are very important.”
Haydn Long, global media and investor relations manager with Flight Centre, said travel agents expected airlines to keep discounting tickets to sell seats.
More than 9 million foreign arrivals who would usually spend $45 billion on holidays in Australia each year are now unable to visit, leaving a massive hole in the tourism economy.
“As normal domestic flight capacity gradually increases and with the international guest shortfall tracking at just under 1 million people a month who would normally be purchasing local flight tickets to get around airlines will be looking to discount fares in order to sell seats,” Long says.
More holiday deals would come online as the hotel sector gradually returned.
“Airlines can pull empty flights, but hotels can’t dump rooms,” Mr Long said. “With all those foreign tourists missing, hotels will need to discount rooms to shift inventory.”
Recent Qantas research suggests 75 per cent of Australians intend to fly in the next six months, and this figure will grow as restrictions continue to ease.
But Flight Centre CEO Graham “Skroo” Turner cautioned that the experience of Victoria, and mass travel cancellations into Melbourne in particular, was a worrying portent.
“Probably spikes are going to happen again and again if Victoria is anything to go by,” he said.
“I don’t think we, or rather governments, have a very good strategy. We need to better understand what the objectives are. If we’re opening and closing borders over and over again as second and third waves hit, that will become pretty unworkable. Does it suggest we can’t move until we get a vaccine? We need to work out these issues.”

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