New figures have revealed that blocking Qatar Airways from adding 21 weekly flights to Australia will cost more than half a billion dollars per annum in tourism revenue.
The Australian Financial Review said it has seen numbers from airline industry sources that detail a cost of between $540-788m in annual economic activity. This figure is based on approximately half the seats being sold to foreign visitors.
In explaining her decision to reject the additional flights to parliament yesterday, Transport Minister Catherin King said she was doing it to protect Aussie jobs.
“We only sign up to agreements that benefit our national interest, in all of its broad complexity, and that includes ensuring that we have an aviation sector, through the recovery, that employs Australian workers,” she said.
“The government has determined that agreeing to the Qatar Civil Aviation Authority request for additional services is not in our national interest, and we will always consider the need to ensure that there are long-term, well-paid, secure jobs by Australians in the aviation sector when we are making these decisions.”
Qatar Airways was looking to add 21 flights per week into hubs such as Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth from the Middle East.
The Federal Government sought out the opinion of Qantas as part of Qatar Airways’ application process for bilateral air rights. Qantas opposed the bid on the grounds that it would cause Australian job losses, according to The Australian.
