Travellers will pay more to fly into Canberra as extra domestic flights are added in time for Christmas, but it is the airlines determining the higher prices, Canberra Airport management says.
The cost of a one-way trip between Canberra and Sydney is now almost $200, while a flight from Sydney to Melbourne costs around $70 on the same day.
Canberra Airport head of aviation Michael Thompson said the high prices to travel to and from Canberra are driven by the low number of available flights on the route.
Only 21 flights are currently running the 55-minute route between Canberra and Sydney each week, he said.
Five domestic airlines operate flights to 11 destinations from Canberra Airport, which is in recovery mode, Mr Thompson said.
However, the airport charges some airlines five times the amount to fly into Canberra than Melbourne Airport does, a cost which is passed on to the consumer.
Qantas ticket-holders flying into Canberra are charged about $23 in airport fees, while someone flying into Melbourne would be charged only $4, according to an analysis by the Sunday Canberra Times.
The only comparable cost for another capital city is the Northern Territory, where Qantas charges customers about $20 a ticket to cover fees at Darwin Airport.
The Australian Airports Association said it was an airport operator's right to determine fees and the Capital Airport Group, which runs Canberra Airport, had not attracted the attention of the Productivity Commission's most recent review of airport economic regulations.
Under Australian law, airlines and operators of landside services negotiate directly with airport operators on charges and other terms of access to a range of infrastructure services.
The federal and state governments do not intervene in the setting of charges or other terms of access, except for some regional services at Sydney Airport.
Price and quality of service monitoring is administered by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission for Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.
The four major airports are required to provide the commission each year with information on their prices, costs and profits for aeronautical services and car parking. Canberra Airport conducts voluntary, self-reported monitoring.
In 2019, the Productivity Commission found Canberra Airport had a high proportion of non-leisure passengers, who tend to be relatively insensitive to price changes.
The commission also noted that the availability of road transport between Canberra and Sydney, which accounts for one-third of passenger movements between the cities, limited Canberra Airport's ability to exercise its market power.
The volume of flights an airline brings in to an airport increases its bargaining power, a commission spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said Qantas had shares in the fuel supply at Sydney Airport, and this arrangement could account for the lower landing fee, which was $9.37 a ticket.
Mr Thompson said Canberra Airport was relying on a return to office work to generate more travel to facilitate face-to-face meetings.
"The sooner we start seeing more of that, the sooner the aviation industry will pick up and that will be to the benefit of everyone," he told the Sunday Canberra Times.
