Flight Centre boss Graham Turner doubled down on his criticism of the Albanese government for blocking Qatar Airways from adding more flights to Australia.
to reject an application from Qatar Airways to double its flights to Australia.
“This is a significant blow. No other part of the tourism and aviation sector can rationalise it. I don’t blame Qantas for its lobbying, but I am concerned it was successful,” Turner said.“This is supposed to be a competitive market, a free market. Our travel agency business competes with many major international businesses in Australia, as it should. Most other markets we compete in are relatively competitive.
“This is a significant blow. [...] I don’t blame Qantas for its lobbying, but I am concerned it was successful.”Turner said he was “reasonably confident” more international airlines would continue to apply to fly to Australia. He pointed to European carriers including Air France, which does not currently fly to Australia and has indicated it would like to.
Flight Centre’s results were buoyed by the resumption of corporate travel overseas. The group expects corporate travel in Australia to exceed 2019 levels by the end of 2024 as fares normalise. “We spent a lot of time negotiating with businesses during COVID-19 to make sure they would continue to partner with us. We won a lot of work that way. This result is down to that success in the US and UK, but we expect Australian corporate travel to normalise as fares come down, and it becomes easier to book a seat,” Turner said.RBC equity research analyst Wei-Wei Chen said Flight Centre’s leisure travel division outperformed its expectations, while its corporate segment underperformed.
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