Last week, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce took to the airwaves, using a radio interview on station 6PR to blast Perth Airport on a number of fronts. Joyce said that the airport's lack of space and facilities prevents the nation's flag carrier from adding more long-haul direct flights from Perth.
There was a time around the middle of last year when Qantas was in the media spotlight for all the wrong reasons, and rumors surfaced of Joyce's departure from the top job. He was never going anywhere, but in the last week, he has penned an opinion piece for a national newspaper and featured on Perth radio, embracing the media to get the Qantas message into the public domain. Perhaps his next career is as a media personality?
Not a happy couple at all
Qantas and Perth Airport (PER) butt heads regularly, most often over airport fees, international flight routes and terminal facilities. In 2018 the airport instigated legal action against Qantas over aeronautical fees, with the West Australia Supreme Court ruling in the airport's favor in 2022.
According to a report by WAtoday, Joyce said there would not be direct flight routes to new destinations from Perth until Qantas could reach a new long-term agreement with Perth airport on terminals. The CEO confirmed that the London (LHR) and Singapore direct flights would remain and that the Perth-Rome flights would resume between June and October 2023, in time for the northern summer.
On the minus side, he said the Perth direct flights to Jakarta [Indonesia], and Johannesburg [South Africa] had to be suspended because the Qantas terminals lacked space or facilities for custom processes. He added: "We're trying to resolve this with the authorities and the airport [and] if we could fix that, we'd put them back in."
Western Australians are fiercely protective of their state, usually referring to Sydney or Melbourne business leaders as 'wise men from the east.' So it is a wise move from Joyce to tell local audiences it's not the airline's fault that direct services from Perth are suspended or not growing, laying the blame at the door of the airport.
The lure of the A321XLR
Qantas group airline Jetstar is adding Airbus A321LRs every month, and the group also has A321XLRs on order. With its proximity to Asia, Perth is a logical base for launching these long-range narrowbodies into the region, but Joyce warns that other cities are also vying for more flights.
"We'd love to be able to expand our operations from Perth into Asia as well and make it an unbelievably big co-op second only to Sydney in size. It's just a growth opportunity and other airports around the country are keen to get it, the aircraft are movable assets.
"So if it's not Perth to Paris, it could be Brisbane to Chicago, or if it's not Perth to Hong Kong, it could be Brisbane to Hong Kong, with a narrowbody aircraft. I really want them to be Perth. We just need to get an agreement with the airport."
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Perth is also missing out on Airbus A330 flights from Sydney and Melbourne due to those aircraft being used on the in-demand international network. Joyce attributed the shortage of widebody east-west services to the extended time it takes to bring back more Airbus A380s to service, mainly due to supply chain shortages.
What do you think of the CEO's approach to Perth Airport? Let us know in the comments.
Source: WAtoday