Foreign airlines could soon fly domestic routes to and from Darwin under a L/NP federal government

[HS-TQE]

If the L/NP win the upcoming federal election of course.

Saying that, can't see much interest from foreign carriers. The only international carriers currently operating into DRW are AK/QZ and SQ. The president behind the AK/QZ group (Tony Fernandes) was on record mentioning that "You'd have to be drugs" to set up a Domestic LCC in Australia.

The Coalition has a plan to lower Darwin airfares, but can it work?

The Coalition has promised to allow overseas airlines to fly domestic routes between Darwin and the east coast if it wins government. But would that reduce prices?

www.abc.net.au

 

[Saab34]

You'd have to be drugs" to set up a Domestic LCC in Australia.

However this would enable them to simply avoid all those startup costs and simply move aircraft between domestic ports with no other overheads aside the normal airport charges, wages etc. Certainly during peak periods Darwin is busy, some would be interested.

I don’t think it’s a wise move but it appears the coalition won’t be forming government so who cares.

 

[justinbrett]

If the L/NP win the upcoming federal election of course.

Saying that, can't see much interest from foreign carriers. The only international carriers currently operating into DRW are AK/QZ and SQ. The president behind the AK/QZ group (Tony Fernandes) was on record mentioning that "You'd have to be drugs" to set up a Domestic LCC in Australia.

The Coalition has a plan to lower Darwin airfares, but can it work?

The Coalition has promised to allow overseas airlines to fly domestic routes between Darwin and the east coast if it wins government. But would that reduce prices?

www.abc.net.au

They don't have to set up an airline, they're just going to offer blanket 8th freedom rights (cabotage) if operating via DRW. This has been floated for decades.

I could see this being attractive to airlines who have limited capacity into Australia. For someone like TK - they already have the range to fly IST-DRW direct.

That said, with current polls, moot point.

 

[dajop]

As suggested probably moot. But wonder if it would allow QR, for example to replace ADL with DRW in DOH-MEL-ADL and give them a chance to sell seats on the domestic leg (in coordination with VA which would rather defeat the point). They could easily do a turn to DRW in the 16 hrs they currently spend going to ADL and back between their arrival and departure from MEL. Or whether the expectation would be that backtracking not permitted.

 

[AuSammy]

Not sure of the economics of this given Darwin and surrounds are popn wise approximate a quarter of the size of each of Tasmania and ACT and they don't drum up a lot of interest from near neighbour carriers.

Alice and surrounds are a seperate small popn centre in itself.

Maybe just maybe if there is enough inbound tourism for Yalara or Cairns or Broome via Darwin not currently being serviced to justify one or more tag flights a week

 

[jb747]

The maths don't work...not for cheaper fares, anyway. Remote. Low population. Expensive fuel.

 

[justinbrett]

Not sure of the economics of this given Darwin and surrounds are popn wise approximate a quarter of the size of each of Tasmania and ACT and they don't drum up a lot of interest from near neighbour carriers.

Apples and oranges - can't compare HBA/LST/CBR that are less than hour flight to MEL & SYD, with high frequency domestic services. Any new service there will have a lot of competition even if it's a new carrier with direct services vs legacy carrier via a major hub. DRW already does sustain some international routes.

Also need to remember domestic fares out of DRW are much higher, and thus much more profitable (hence why this whole idea was proposed to bring down prices). Not uncommon to see Y fares approaching 1K each way in the dry season.

MH might be interested, as they could resume their on again/off again service to DRW, and continue to BNE.

Still, never going to happen.

 

[Saab34]

The maths don't work...not for cheaper fares, anyway. Remote. Low population. Expensive fuel.

What diversion would you take for Darwin? Broome/Cairns?

 

[CaptJCool]

You’d be wanting to do Darwin to Canberra for all the backwards and forwards of NT and federal public servants who have the highest annual salaries than anywhere else in the country

With only 2 Senators and 2 MHRs it’s all the APS/NT public service and NGO traffic that MIGHT Make it feasible

 

[jb747]

What diversion would you take for Darwin? Broome/Cairns?

None really. I doubt that loads are there anyway. The result of one coming in would probably be someone else pulling out. You’re never going to be filling LCCs at low cost. There was possibly an opportunity for using Darwin as the ULR hub instead of Perth, but I think that ship has long sailed.

 

[XWu]

I can’t remember flying between domestic destinations via cabotage flights for a long time but from memory of previous forum and a single personal experience, you don’t need a passport for the flight but both departures and arrival are processed as international flights, is that correct?

If so, then international departure and arrival at DRW, SYD can be a PITA due to border force efficiency (or lack of) with varying experience in other international processing at airports at the rest of the major state capitals. So if anyone wants to save money by taking advantage of the cabotage domestic flights, the fare must be pretty discounted (compared to a full domestic flights) to be attractive.

 

[HS-TQE]

Also the D sticker system for passengers flying Domestic tags from international terminals isn't exactly that popular amongst the general public, unless if passengers are doing FF status runs and/or are AvGeeks..

Can't see too many people jumping on a hypothetical cheap MH fare between DRW and BNE for example whilst having to do international checks on both ends (plus bringing in the appropriate ID and being provided boarding passes with 'D' stickers).

 

[justinbrett]

Can't see too many people jumping on a hypothetical cheap MH fare between DRW and BNE for example whilst having to do international checks on both ends (plus bringing in the appropriate ID and being provided boarding passes with 'D' stickers).

If it's cheap they will. Having been a DRW resident for a few years I know what it's like to have to pay huge fares for parts of the year (dry season) to go anywhere south.

Appropriate ID is just a drivers licence, not an issue (you're supposed to have to it fly any domestic flight, so moot point). DRW international is in the same terminal as domestic so probably adds 5 minutes to the process.

You’d be wanting to do Darwin to Canberra for all the backwards and forwards of NT and federal public servants who have the highest annual salaries than anywhere else in the country

With only 2 Senators and 2 MHRs it’s all the APS/NT public service and NGO traffic that MIGHT Make it feasible

Why do a fringe route like that - do a trunk route like DRW-BNE or DRW-SYD where the pax demand already is.

 

[markis10]

You'd have to be drugs" to set up a Domestic LCC in Australia.

Bonza’s financiers seek to have a history here….

 

[XWu]

DRW international is in the same terminal as domestic so probably adds 5 minutes to the process.

As another forum reader has written, the (2nd) security screening to the international departure gates is not smooth going* and easily adds 30 mins to the process,( and that’s after the initial domestic crowd security screening)

*Qantas to start flights from Darwin to Singapore
(And that’s with the inaugural QF DRW-SIN flight where I would have expected that every NT official and DRW executives would have wanted everything to go smoothly)

And this is consistent with what i had experienced myself before (albeit a pre-COVID time). Funny enough the international departure screening queue at BKK brought back memories of DRW…

 

[justinbrett]

As another forum reader has written, the (2nd) security screening to the international departure gates is not smooth going* and easily adds 30 mins to the process,( and that’s after the initial domestic crowd security screening)

*Qantas to start flights from Darwin to Singapore
(And that’s with the inaugural QF DRW-SIN flight where I would have expected that every NT official and DRW executives would have wanted everything to go smoothly)

And this is consistent with what i had experienced myself before (albeit a pre-COVID time). Funny enough the international departure screening queue at BKK brought back memories of DRW…

I have flown international out of Darwin quite a lot and I’d say 30 minutes is very excessive. This would be a flight where pax would remain in transit and some pax would join so the queues would not be an entire flights worth.

Sounds like the airport wasn’t prepared for the new service. QF used to do these a lot (eg ADL-DRW-SIN or SYD-BOM-DRW) so I’m sure they’d get back into the swing of it

In any case, when you're talking about routes that operate once a day, maybe twice tops, the extra time isn't a huge factor as it might be for a MEL-SYD. I used to fly BNE-CNS-DRW because it was the only way to leave BNE in the afternoon and get to DRW at a reasonable hour.

 

[jb747]

It's all quite doable, but my point is that it would not be cheap. And as best I can gather the aim is cheap flights, not convenience. I doubt that it would have either.

 

[dajop]

Maybe carriers coming from east of Australia could make it work. FJ from NAN-BNE-DRW .

TBH the problem is getting enough traffic on the international sector to/from DRW. You’ve got to sell as many seats on xx_-DRW as you do from DRW-SYD, BNE or MEL to make it work. Maybe a carrier with really low cost narrow body operation could make it work (such as VietJet or an Indonesian LCC - even possible scissor hubbing - eg Danang-MEL, Nha Trang-SYD or the like.). But are people going to want VietJet, LionAir or Indonesia Air Asia doing domestic sectors?

But really I think it’s unlikely to go anywhere even if it had bipartisan support.

 

[justinbrett]

Maybe carriers coming from east of Australia could make it work. FJ from NAN-BNE-DRW .

TBH the problem is getting enough traffic on the international sector to/from DRW. You’ve got to sell as many seats on xx_-DRW as you do from DRW-SYD, BNE or MEL to make it work. Maybe a carrier with really low cost narrow body operation could make it work (such as VietJet or an Indonesian LCC - even possible scissor hubbing - eg Danang-MEL, Nha Trang-SYD or the like.). But are people going to want VietJet, LionAir or Indonesia Air Asia doing domestic sectors?

But really I think it’s unlikely to go anywhere even if it had bipartisan support.

Can’t be any worse than VA’s CNS-HND!

SQ already fly to DRW. They could extend on to BNE or perhaps even OOL. DPS services always sell well. MH with KUL.

It also means carriers can fly a 737/A320 to SYD etc when they can’t fill a widebody.

But again this proposal has probably got more attention than it deserves.