Council to consider flight levy

Airfares between Perth and Albany could rise even further this year, with Albany City Council to consider passing the cost of an estimated $500,000 security screening upgrade at Albany Regional Airport onto travellers, at its meeting tonight.

The Albany Advertiser understands the item was a late addition to this month’s council agenda and was added so the City will have time to recoup the cost of an upgrade from Skywest.

By July 1 this year, the City of Albany needs to comply with legislation that requires airports which service planes weighing more than 20,000kg to install security-screening services.

Albany Mayor Dennis Wellington said the City had no choice but to add the cost of upgrades and ongoing running expenses to airticket prices.

“It’s not a charity service, we’ve got to get that money back,” he said.

Mr Wellington said Skywest was selling tickets months in advance and if fees were not in place soon the City would lose out on revenue.

“They’re starting to book past the first of July now and they need to know what that figure is going to be,” he said.

“The cost has got to go on the cost of tickets because it’s costing roughly in the order of half a million dollars to put that security screening in.”

Mr Wellington said the local government hoped most of the equipment installation costs would be covered by State Government funding, but ongoing screening would need to be administered by as many as five staff and those costs would need to be recouped.

Last year, the City secured $1.25 million in State Government Regional Airports Development Scheme funding for the installation of the screening services and for a review of its airport master plan.

Mr Wellington said at this stage how much ticket prices would rise by was unknown.

Currently a one-way Albany-to-Perth ticket can cost as much as $285.