Southern fares unjust

Press, 29 March 1982, Page 16

Southern fares unjust

The regulations that prevent Singaporebound travellers from flying on Qantas flights out of Christchurch or Wellington on the cheapest available fares-are unjust: Qantas recently was granted the right to carry passengers on advance-purchase and excursion fares to Singapore by way of Sydney, but only, on its flights from Auckland.

This situation suggests the following possibility: A Christchurch traveller decides to buy an excursion ticket to Singapore and chooses to fly with Qantas via Sydney. On the day of his departure, say next Sunday, the airline has a flight scheduled to leave from Christchurch for Sydney at 3.45 p.m. But he is not permitted to use that service. Instead, he will pay $274 for a round-trip fare to Auckland and will leave Christchurch at 2 p.m. on a domestic flight north. At Auckland he will trundle from the domestic to the international terminal, and will wait two hours before boarding an identical Qantas 747 which will eventually take off for Sydney 45 minutes after the Qantas flight departs from Christchurch. More than seven hours after leaving home, he will land at Sydney as the last of the passengers from the 2 hour 50 minute direct flight from Christchurch are clearing Customs.

The “Auckland only” restriction makes even less sense in light of the fact that the distances from both Christchurch and Wellington to Singapore by way of Sydney are significantly shorter than the route via Auckland. Indeed, Christchurch passengers are forced to add an unnecessary 1500 kilometres to their round-trip journey by being directed through Auckland instead of being able to use flights already available to Sydney from Christchurch. Traditionally, South Islanders have had to pay extra to get to Auckland to fly on cheap fares to a number of destinations. The agreement between the Singapore and New Zealand Goverments was designed originally to boost the direct Auckiand-

Singapore flights of Air New Zealand and Singapore Airlines. However, after Air New Zealand last year was granted access by the Australian Government to cheap fares from Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane to the United States via Auckland, Qantas in return filed for a share- of the cheap-fare market from Auckland to Singapore, a concession eventually granted within the confines of the status quo.

Qantas’s entry into that market introduced a new route. While Air New Zealand and Singapore Airlines fly only non-stop between Singapore and Auckland, Qantas’s flights are routed through Sydney. It is this development that has opened up potential — if not yet realised — opportunities for Christchurch travellers. A similar situation may soon apply on the Hong Kong route. Passengers on cheap air fares are present can only fly to Hong Kong ex-Auckland on Air New Zealand’s direct flights. However, Qantas has now filed for a share of that market, also using its flights through Sydney. If the bid is successful, then to all practical intents and purposes, South Islanders could reasonably expect to fly to Hong Kong on Qantas’s also shorter route from Christchurch.

But once again, the stifling atmosphere of airline protectionism, tidily bound by a govemment-to-govemment agreement, renders any attempt to incorporate , Christchurch or Wellington into the structure a futile exercise.

The situation is compounded by other anomalies. While travellers destined for Singapore or Hong Kong on excursion fares are forced to pay the extra costs of getting to Auckland, those on excursion fares to London pay the one tariff from any of New Zealand’s three international gateways and, ironically, enjoy the option of stopovers in Hong Kong or Singapore along the way. Furthermore, Qantas is now carrying excursion-fare passengers from Christchurch to London via Sydney.