There are two matters associated with commercial aviation, and particularly, involving Australia’s national carrier, Qantas.
Government regulation permits only Qantas and United Airlines to fly directly to the United State’s West Coast. Whilst Qantas flies Melbourne to Los Angeles directly, United conducts its flights via Sydney.
The lack of competition from other carriers willing to provide this service, results in obscenely high ticket prices, particularly when compared to flights to Europe, where there is significantly more competition.
Qantas has admitted that the flights to the U.S.A. result in large profits, compared with other routes.
It is bewildering that the Government has not taken action in the interests of the travelling public.
This brings me to the Qantas Frequent Flyer Program.
This widely promoted program, with a very large member base, continues to allow members to accumulate points, not only from flying, but from other diverse sources such as credit cards.
Despite some newspaper reports at the time of the farcical failure of the Qantas sale, that the Frequent Flyer Program would be revamped to make it fairer, and user-friendly, nothing further has been heard. This program perpetrates a blatant fraud on its members.
Flights are most often unavailable, or classes are unavailable.
Unless these elements are addressed, we, the travelling public should boycott this program.