Things could be about to change with recent interest in "regional" airports like Darwin. In part this interest arises due to aviation access regimes negotiated between countries. For example Australia and the United Arab Emirates bilateral agreement currently limits Emirates to 84 weekly services into Australia's four biggest ports of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. But the agreement does not limit services to other airports.
With the 84 limit rapidly approaching, Emirates has recently announced the commencement of Adelaide as their next Australian destination from November. The airlines CEO, Tim Clark, also indicated that Darwin was on their radar.
On 14 June The Australian reported Clark as saying "And fortunately the brand of Emirates in Australia is pretty strong. If we were to do Adelaide, Darwin, Cairns or whatever, I believe we would fill our planes up fairly quickly," he said. "So I wouldn't be talking about the odd frequency in smaller aircraft, we'd go in there daily."
Similarly Australia's bilateral agreement with China limits flights between China and the same big four Australian ports. From February this year, airlines of both countries are limited to 22,500 seats per week. Importantly an additional 2,500 seats per week are available to airlines which make stopovers at regional airports such a Cairns, Broome or Darwin.
Cairns has already benefited from this provision with China Eastern announcing three services a week between Shanghai and Cairns and now China Southern has indicated that from December they will commence a four month trial of three services a week on a Guangzhou-Brisbane-Cairns triangular route.
The Northern Territory News today noted China Southern's choice of Cairns as a snub of Darwin, following representations from Tourism Minister Mallarndirri McCarthy and Skycity Managing Director Nigel Morrison. However it is not a matter of Darwin and Cairns competing for the same flights, more a matter of the access regime and market numbers stacking up in Darwin's favour at some time.
Northern Territory News, Conor Byrne, 16 August 2012
CHINA’S largest airline has snubbed the Territory in favour of North Queensland.
China Southern will fly into Cairns tri-weekly from December, and boost its Brisbane services from four times a week to daily. It was hoped that the Cairns route would be triangulated to take in Darwin.
Tourism Minister Mallarndirri McCarthy was in talks with the airline in China at the end of last year.
China Southern Airlines president Tan Wan Geng told the NT News in September: ‘‘Darwin will definitely be in our plan.’’ But he said that the NT Government had a lot of work to do to promote the Territory in China.
‘‘We’re very happy to include the Northern Territory in our promotion program from now,’’ he said. ‘‘But we would also like to see a promotion effort from your side.’’
Ms McCarthy told Mr Wan Geng that she understood the Government would have to work hard to make it a reality.
‘‘But we are very prepared to do the hard work,’’ the minister said in October.
Yesterday, Ms McCarthy’s spokeswoman, Ursula Raymond, said: ‘‘We did our best to make our pitch and talk up the Territory, but in the end it’s their commercial decision.’’
China Southern was still in talks with SkyCity Darwin casino last month.
Managing director Nigel Morrison predicted China Southern Airlines would service the Territory from Guangzhou three times a week within 18 months.
Tourism and Transport Forum chief executive John Lee said the announcement is ‘‘a strong signal that Tropical Far North Queensland will continue to play a crucial role in Australia’s tourism mix as new Asian markets open’’.