City of Greater Geraldton and Qantas continue discussions on flight reductions at confidential meeting

Discussions continue between Qantas, the City of Greater Geraldton, State Government and other stakeholders following the airline’s decision to continue its reduced schedule, with the latest round of confidential talks held on Thursday morning. Organised by the Department of Transport, the aviation meeting was attended by various stakeholders including those from the Geraldton medical sector. Speaking at Tuesday night’s agenda forum, City director of corporate and commercial services Paul Radalj said he expected Qantas to get asked some very serious questions. However, it’s unclear if any outcome was achieved from the confidential meeting. The talks comes after Qantas announced earlier this month it will continue to operate on a reduced flight schedule to and from Geraldton until at least March next year. The schedule includes double daily flights on Monday and Friday, but will continue to see a single midday flight throughout the middle of the week. Previously, Qantas had offered morning and evening Geraldton-Perth flights throughout the week, but reduced their schedule in June because of staffing issues related to COVID. In September Qantas announced these changes would continue to the end of October, but it has since announced its “cautious approach to network capacity” will see the reduced schedule remain until March 2023. Qantas said it would use bigger planes, providing 95 per cent of the seats it previously offered over the week. Speaking at the time of the announcement, Geraldton GP and chair of the Midwest GP Network said the schedule was a “nightmare” for healthcare specialists. “The restrictive flights mean it’s more difficult for specialists to come up here, they have to take more time away from their work in Perth,” he said. While the City of Greater Geraldton is looking to find other airlines to take on Geraldton-Perth flights as it grows frustrated with Qantas, but acknowledged there were limited options. Mr Radalj said the City was willing to provide incentives to airlines to fly the route.