Virgin slashes Albany flights

The City of Albany has expressed deep disappointment in the State Government’s decision to allow Virgin Australia to reduce the number of flights between Perth and Albany, effective this week.

Virgin, which holds a contract with the State Government to provide Albany’s air service until February 2016, applied to the Department of Transport to alter its agreement to change the flight number from 20 a week to 12 in August.

The application was met with anger from the community and Albany MLA Peter Watson, who aired a grievance on the matter in State Parliament to Transport Minister Dean Nalder in September.

On Friday, Virgin announced a new flight timetable, revealing the number of flights between the two cities had been slashed from 20 per week to 15.

The Albany Advertiser understands the City was not advised by State Government about the change until late Friday afternoon after a press release was distributed by Virgin.

Albany Mayor Dennis Wellington said the reduction in air services did not make sense at a time when the City was trying to develop its tourism industry.

Mr Wellington said the reduction in the number of flights left little room for growth and could lead to the tourism market declining. “This is an extremely short- sighted approach by Virgin and it is very disappointing that the Department of Transport has not listened to the City of Albany’s position on the matter,” he said.

“We were very clear, the City understands air routes need to be commercially viable, but the City would only support a reduction in the number of flights if the overall passenger numbers remained the same, for example by switching some flights to Fokker 100 aircraft.”

Mr Watson said he was advised by Mr Nalder’s staff that Virgin had threatened to pull out of negotiations with the State Government because the airline was only required to give three months notice to cease services.

“Whoever set that contract up, it’s crazy ... they can more or less say: ‘If you don’t like our conditions, we can walk out’,” he said.

“Albany is just starting to kick-start … I know they have to run at a profit, most businesses do, but when you sign a contract, (you cannot) tell any other major business: ‘We’re not making any money, we’ve got to get out’.”

Mr Nalder said it was regrettable Virgin Australia had made the decision to cut flights.

He said the decision was made after extensive consultation with the department and the community and said the new schedule balanced the needs of the community with the commercial needs of the airline.

“(The negotiations) have resulted in three extra weekly flights remaining on the Perth to Albany route instead of the 12 air services per week originally proposed by the airline,” he said.

Virgin Australia Regional Airlines group executive Merren McArthur said the new flight timetable was designed to maintain the best possible schedule and help ensure the long-term viability of services to Albany.

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