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Regional airlines should be exempted from some aspects of the government’s proposed charter of customer rights, the peak body for regional aviation has said.
In its submission responding to the draft charter, the Regional Aviation Association of Australia (RAAA) acknowledged the “highly emotive and frustrating” issues around passenger consumer rights, including delays and cancellations, that have led to the proposal.
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However, it argued that taking a one-size-fits-all approach to customer protections would have “the potential to impact regional and remote communities across Australia in adverse ways including increases in prices or reduction in services”.
“The inclusion of regional airlines in all components of the proposed charter would result in an unfair operational burden on regional carriers, particularly as their ability to mitigate the effects of unexpected events that lead to flight delays is limited,” the RAAA wrote.
“The imposition of any additional costs on regional airlines raises a real possibility of adverse impacts for communities in regional and remote locations across Australia. Any new scheme should consider the type of airline operation and the locations they are operating to protect the services they provide to regional and remote communities across Australia.
“Safety must also remain the industry’s number one priority. Any Charter must not threaten or compromise the world-class safety culture of the Australian aviation industry. There is a real risk that safety could be undermined by factors that put pressure on an operator to avoid a financial penalty as part of their day-to-day operational decision making.”
According to the RAAA, predominantly regional operators should be excluded from the charter for a number of reasons including:
- “Materially different” operating conditions to major domestic carriers, such as remote operations with no back-up aircraft or engineering services.
- Limited services on regional routes.
- Greater impact from “destabilising events”.
- Higher costs and lower or inconsistent demand.
- The need to foster “critical services and connectivity” provided by regional aviation.
- Limited staff for customer service and in-house legal departments.
- The potential impact to regional connectivity should a carrier fail.
The organisation submitted that many concerns addressed by the charter would be covered under Australian Consumer Law, and any charter should “consider the type of airline operation and the locations they operate so as to protect the services provided to regional and remote communities across Australia”.
“The imposition of any additional cost burdens on regional airlines raises a real possibility of adverse impacts for communities in regional and remote locations across Australia,” it wrote.
“Any charter needs to focus only on specific issues that it is intended to address and not be a catch-all approach that then has a range of unintended consequences for regional aviation organisations.”
The RAAA’s submission follows a submission by consumer advocacy group Choice arguing that the charter’s protections are too weak.
