In yet another questionable report, council’s general manager revealed at last week’s ordinary meeting that council had received an “unsolicited” proposal from an airline seeking approval to commence a trial air passenger service between Sydney & Merimbula, commencing in mid-December.
Council resolved to consider the proposal in “closed session” & in doing so “flagged” its willingness to negotiate a potentially more attractive set of commercial arrangements with the applicant to those currently applying to the shire’s long-standing service provider, Rex.
The association does not share council’s obvious enthusiasm for the “unsolicited” proposal from Qantas & thinks that the uncertainty surrounding the short to medium term future of airlines due to the Covid2019 pandemic is more than enough reason to have declined the proposal.
Meanwhile, while official statistics indicate that annual Merimbula passenger movements (43,611) for 2019-20120 were the lowest in 15 years, according to the report to council, they have actually declined by 95% over the past nine months, meaning that they have shrunk to a point where they are negligible.
As for those constantly whinging about airfares being too high, Rex report that their average ticket prices have only risen by an average of 1.1% in the past 17 years.
Notwithstanding its inept management of the airport expansion project & the new realities of a post-Covid world, council has remained driven by a fixation on a failing “build it & they’ll come” strategy. Coupled with its inability to effectively manage its long-term relationship with Rex, council’s latest move involving Qantas appears to be little more than another high stakes gamble.
Of course Rex reacted predictably to the news, announcing that it would withdraw from servicing the route, leaving council, as well as residents & ratepayers, to ponder what the future might bring should Qantas decide not to continue its service beyond the trial period & at once making the claim by council’s Mayor, Russell Fitzpatrick, that the move by Qantas would "offer greater choice & value for customers, helping bring more visitors to the region" totally ridiculous.
And while
Qantas fan,
Neil Hansford, of
Strategic Aviation Services, was keen to criticise
Rex on
ABC Radio earlier this week, repeatedly accusing the airline of “
bullying” council, he seems to have forgotten that back in 2017
he endorsed Rex's criticisms of council & forecast that the entry of a 2nd airline to the
Merimbula-Sydney route would likely result in
Rex abandoning it altogether.
Notwithstanding Hansford’s current criticism of Rex, he made it clear that the introduction of new services will not lead to an increase in tourist passenger numbers.
As the association has previously highlighted, the overwhelming majority of passenger movements associated with Merimbula Airport are not tourism-related & suggestions by council that the involvement of Qantas in the Sydney-Merimbula route will result in an increase in tourism numbers are completely unjustified.
And finally, while the general manager advised council that “The proposal as outlined by the company is consistent with the Merimbula Airport Masterplan …”, she didn’t bother to remind council that more than four years ago it had resolved “to update the Merimbula Regional Airport Masterplan with the latest research and analysis, considering the altered forecasts surrounding this project and report back to Council for adoption.”
The sad reality is that in our future Covid2019 world, council’s ambition of turning the south coast into a “fly-in, fly-out” tourist Mecca, attracting hundreds of thousands of additional tourist visitors to the area, is now even less likely to be realised, while Merimbula Airport will remain just another glaring example of council’s wilful irresponsibility & mismanagement.
John Richardson
Secretary/Treasurer
Bega Valley Shire Residents & Ratepayers Association
Tel: 0264945669
Email: secretary@begavalleyshireratepayers.asn.au
Website: http://www.begavalleyshireratepayers.asn.au