Qantas lodged a nine-page submission to the Senate on Wednesday,one week after theSenate select committee into bilateral air rights chair Bridget McKenzie admonished the airline for failing to make a submission before its appearance last week.
“If Virgin and Rex can do it,I do not understand why the largest and most dominant carrier in the country can’t respect this committee by putting pen to paper and addressing the terms of reference,” McKenzie said.
In the submission,Qantas said claims that Qatar would have generated hundreds of millions of dollars in additional tourism revenue –aired by much of the aviation and tourism industries – were over-baked.
The carrier’s former chief economist Tony Webber estimated Qatar’s extra flights would have generated about $500 million,while University of Sydney professor Rico Merkhert said the rejection would cost more than $1 billion in annual revenue.
But Qantas said Qatar Airways carried a “disproportionately high” number of Australians out of the country.
“On that basis,suggestions that granting the Qatar Civil Aviation Authority application would have materially advanced the Australian tourism industry’s recovery are overstated,” Qantas said.