Australia's skyhigh domestic airfares set to plummet

Australia's sky-high domestic transcontinental airfares are set to crash by more than 70 per cent after the school holidays that end on Monday, April 25. Airline capacity shortfalls and school holidays have combined to create the perfect hip pocket storm for last-minute travellers with some one-way fares over $1000 to cross the country for the next two weeks. But from April 26 fares with Qantas and Virgin Australia from Perth plummet to $259 to Sydney, $269 to Melbourne and $229 to Adelaide. In May Jetstar has lead-in one-way Perth to Adelaide fares at $137 and Sydney and Melbourne at $181. READ: Virgin Australia cuts business class fares by up to 60 per cent  READ: Virgin Australia's new business frequent flyer program Both Qantas and Virgin Australia are well below the capacity provided prior to COVID on the key Perth to Sydney and Melbourne routes caused by rapid and unexpected changes to the WA hard border that caught them out. Prior to COVID Qantas was operating about eight A330 flights a day to Sydney from Perth and a similar number to Melbourne but the airline is currently operating six flights a day - half with the 271-seat A330 and half with the 174-seat Boeing 737-800, which represents a 38 per cent decrease in capacity. Virgin Australia was operating 275-seat A330s across Australia but these have left the fleet and the airline uses the 176-seat Boeing 737-800 which represents a 36 per cent reduction in capacity. The huge demand for school holiday travel after the WA border came down has seen virtually every flight full between Perth, Sydney, Melbourne and even Adelaide up until April 26. Beyond the end of April, fare levels stay low with plenty of cheap seats through May and June and even into the July school holidays which kick off on July 2. Qantas said that “it is looking at the capacity and is planning to add more flights in May and June as demand grows.” Virgin Australia is also adding services with an additional daily flight from Perth to Sydney and Melbourne from May onwards. The capacity shortfall is reflected in the Perth Airport traffic numbers with interstate March 2022 passenger numbers up threefold on February’s 49,581 but only 40 per cent of the number who flew interstate in March 2019. In stark contrast, Perth Airport’s intrastate passenger numbers for March of 415,940 is 23 per cent above the March 2019 figure. Fares to Broome drop from a high of $466 one-way during the school holidays to $285. International travel is still well down with only 47, 017 international passengers moving through the airport compared to 317,864 in March 2019. Qantas said that key destinations are Queensland and internationally New Zealand as well as London and Los Angeles.