Overseas Airfares

This large capability would allow them to drastically discourage the indigenous sector. Municipal free trade companies and rational economicists such as Trade and Tourism Minister Andrew Robb and Treasurer Joe Hockey support the policies to allow overseas airline companies direct flights to inland destinations. Qantas and Virgin Australia are also strongly opposed to the removal of so-called'cabotage restrictions' on overseas operators wishing to have direct flights onboard.

You say it would be the thin end of the wedge and give alien carriers an unjust and gratuitous benefit. Kabotage is the transport of persons or goods between inland harbours by air or by ship with an international registration. An ERC ministerial endorsed the ERC's debate and said to the Australian news agency that no one had persuasively reasoned that barriers to overseas carriers should be lifted.

"Crucial issues are whether and how global operators would consider these services sustainable and how they would lower prices," the sources said. Practically no nation in the globe grants overseas air companies direct flights on home lines, and it goes without saying that no overseas company has pressed for this transformation.

Mr Qantas said that licensing overseas companies to act as de facto local operators would have far-reaching, unparalleled and harmful implications for Australia's air transport sector. Virgin Australia said that granting entry to overseas airline companies would not acknowledge the vital part local airline companies have been playing in assisting Australia's industries.