The national carrier faced political heat for the second day in a row, this time over whether it is hoarding slots and cancelling services.
Qantas claims the domestic aviation market is “highly competitive”, blaming air traffic control staffing issues and weather conditions for causing the airline to cancel Canberra services at more than five times the rate of competitors.
“It’s not a direct policy [to cancel and hoard slots] as you’re potentially alluding to having more slots and more activity scheduled than what we can deliver,” Mr Zeglin said.Airports and smaller airlines claim Qantas and Virgin Australia routinely cancel flights but rotate the cancellations across services to maintain the 80 per cent usage threshold, under which a slot is retained into perpetuity.
“The barriers to entry are very low in Australia and yes, notwithstanding the large market share by the Qantas Group and Virgin, it’s a very competitive market,” Mr Finch said. “Any change would be resisted by them and I wonder how they managed to influence the outcomes here by leaving the Harris report sitting on a shelf gathering dust for 2½ years.”
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