Australia is considering taking the unusual step of allowing foreign airlines to fly domestic routes in the tropical north of the country to help speed up the region’s economic d

Australia is considering taking the unusual step of allowing foreign airlines to fly domestic routes in the tropical north of the country to help speed up the region’s economic development.

I just wanted to get a feel for the Business Travellers / Frequent Fliers reaction to such a proposal.

Are we for it or against it?

Why will foreign and not domestic airlines enable that? Labour costs?

I could only see working for say Townsville/Cairns to Darwin onto say Singapore or KL or Manilla or Bangkok etc 

Where they drop off pick up at various towns

PAX wise  would it be worth while

I assume Lind26 labour costs etc is behind all this I can t work it out

I did a lot of flying Skytrans FNQ routes in land costs  more than my ADL BNE return flight with QF on disc flex

What foreign airline in their right mind will pick up these routes

That's called the 8th freedom of the Air, where a foreign company is enabled to fly from two domestic destinations in one country then onto it's own. It's not too dissimilar to what Qantas do with NYC - LAX - SYD. 

The 9th freedom is where they don't fly onto their own country. Basically like allowing Chine Southern to operate the Sydney to Melbourne route. I personally can't see that ever happening.

Yes but Qantas can't pick up local traffic between LAX and JFK, only customers on an international ticket... but in this plan, lets say Air Asia fly KUL>Darwin>Cairns, but could pick up a passenger in Darwin and then fly them to Cairns. 

I'm not a fan of this plan. Personally I think Australian domestic skies are for Australian carriers. 

What is the existing QF and VA loads on the affected sectors? Are the incumbents making supernormal profits in those sectors?

Can you kick start growth by liberalising air links if the existing ground infrastructure has not gotten the memo?

Cheaper flights to the tropical north? Then what? If existing infrastructure is inadequate then it just stinks of tokenism. 

Just to clarify it was for cheaper flights between domestic airports in Australias Far North not to the Far north...

this is the link for article

http://www.wsj.com/articles/australias-local-airlines-under-threat-1432542393

I can see a scenario of a Jetstar Asia tag flight with an asian based & paid crew running ex SIN or DPS to PER via mining centres such as PHE or KTA.

There's plenty of FIFO who now base themselves in Bali. I think Virgin is actually operating a direct PHE>DPS?

Does this mean we will need more Australian Border Force staff at every airport that these airlines fly into.

Who pays?  We all will via the Passenger Movement Charge eh?

Easy to talk about it, but will it ever be a reality?  Who knows.

We are already so strict which is good, that we need visas for all visitors, but the idea above, might open us to having to pay a lot higher passenger movement charge, and maybe more "unlawful non citizens".  The more passengers we get, the more of those people who might become overstayers.

I'm not entirely sure the premise is sound. Does increasing supply necessarily result in growth?