Australia tourism industry big loser in protecting Qantas on US route: SIA
Australia tourism industry big loser in protecting Qantas on US route: SIA
Agence France-Presse
Singapore
Australian travellers and the nation's tourism industry are
the losers from Canberra's reported decision to delay Singapore
Airlines (SIA) access to the Australia-U.S. route, the
Singaporean carrier said on Monday.
"We're disappointed but not surprised by reports of the
deferral of this decision -- after all, it isn't the first time,"
SIA's vice president of public affairs, Stephen Forshaw, said in
a statement.
"Travellers between Australia and America, and the Australian
tourism industry, are the losers from the continued delay by the
Australian government in opening access to the Transpacific
route."
The Weekend Australian newspaper reported on Saturday that the
Australian government had indefinitely postponed a decision on
granting SIA access to the lucrative Australia-U.S. route.
The route has been a hotly contested issue between the two
governments after they signed a partial "open skies" agreement in
2003 that allowed Australian national carrier Qantas unrestricted
access to fly in and out of Singapore.
After much lobbying from Qantas, Australia refused to give
recripocal rights, saying it wanted to wait for the world
aviation market to improve before allowing SIA to compete on the
Australia-U.S. route.
The Weekend Australian said the Australian government had now
indefinitely put SIA's bid on hold as it prepared a broad review
of the nation's aviation industry.
The newspaper said Australian Prime Minister John Howard had
phoned his Singaporean counterpart, Lee Hsien Loong, on Friday to
tell him of the decision.
Singapore's Transport Ministry said on Monday it had not yet
been informed of the decision and was still committed to
establishing by the end of this month a "road map" for a full
open skies agreement.
Forshaw said SIA would continue to press the Australian
government on the issue.
"We will highlight that opening access is consistent with free
trade principles, with fairness and open competition, and with
delivering sustainable growth for the aviation and tourism
sectors," he said.
SIA recently released details of a report it sent to Canberra
which claimed that giving the airline access to the Australia-
U.S. route would generate an extra A$126 million (US$96 million)
a year from U.S. tourism spending in Australia.
The report also said fares would drop and growth in demand for
travel to Australia from the United States would grow by four to
eight percent.