A Senate inquiry into the Australian Government’s decision to prevent extra Qatar Airways flights into Australia has found that the decision should be immediately reviewed.

In July, Catherine King, current Transport Minister, formally denied Qatar Airways’ request to have an extra 28 flights fly into Australia every week. However, the latest inquiry concluded that this request should have been approved.

“The weight of evidence before the committee indicates the national interest would have been well served by agreeing to Qatar’s request,” the report said.

Shadow Transport Minister, Bridget McKenzie who chaired the inquiry committee, said that Australians missed out on cheaper international flights due to the rejection.

“The committee heard evidence that Australians could have been enjoying cheaper flights to Europe and the Middle East as early as April this year had the government approved additional Qatar Airways flights,” she said.

“Clear evidence was provided of the aggressive use of market power by Qantas and the committee has called for reinstatement of Australian Competition and Consumer Commission monitoring of the domestic airline industry and for the competition watchdog to inquire into anti-competitive behaviour in the sector.”

The conclusion drawn to by the committee was not unanimously supported. Labor senators Tony Sheldon and Linda White, as well as Greens senator Penny Allman-Payne released statements claiming that the inquiry intended to “correct inaccuracies and obvious bias”.

“It is disappointing this Committee did not seek to make a meaningful contribution to the public debate, but rather descended quite quickly into political antics,” Sheldon and White said in a joint statement.

In October 2022, the carrier asked for additional weekly flights into Australia, but this bid was rejected on 10 July 2023 by King. The request was denied the same day that King wrote a letter to five Australian women who were strip searched at Hamad International Airport in October 2020.

Photo: A7-BEA – Boeing 777- 3DZER – Qatar Airways – MSN 41779 – VGHS by Md Shaifuzzaman Ayon is available HERE and is used under a Creative Commons licence. This photo has not been modified.