Whatever happened to the proposed open board between Australia and NZ?

[james.reid]

Hi Everyone,

With the discussion that is happening in the media at present about whether Virgin should be permitted to have an alliance with Air New Zealand, I am reminded of the proposal that was considered last year to open the boarder between Australia and New Zealand so that flights between the two countries could operate effectively as domestic flights.

An example article is www . smh . com . au/travel/travel-news/deal-opens-sky-to-cheap-nz-airfares-20090221-8e6r.html (sorry... had to mess with the URL to get it submitted successfully)

Making routes between the two countries could help lower fares / make routes more profitable / provide opportunities for routes that are currently cost prohibitive

Does anyone know what happened to the proposal? Is it still progressing? Or did it end up in the too hard basket?

Thanks!
James.

 

[samh004]

I think it’s still progressing, though the idea was that border control would happen on one side only, not that they’d be domestic flights, as far as I understand it.

 

[yohy?!]

Cheap NZ flights as Tasman union looms

Seems like it's gone on the backburner again, J* is still pushing for it...

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...passports-for-nz/story-e6frg8zx-1225891816856

 

[serfty]

As I posted in the following thread, there is little chance the Federal Government is going to do away with over $110Million in AU (Departure Tax): [http://www.australianfrequentflyer....utes-become-domestic-16516-2.html#post255707]

I think the article linked by Mwenenzi in post #57 is still relevant.

David Stone: Borderless Tasman still far away - International Travel - NZ Herald News

Some may find this document interesting: http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/jfadt/nz_cer/subs/sub13.pdf (see last page)


Thinking about this I can't see the AU tax being dropped (nor the NZ one either).

In 2004, ~2.5Million passengers flew from Oz to NZ (and ~2.4Million the other way). This made up ¼ of the total departure tax received that year!

I can't see the Australian Federal government giving up over $115Million in revenue.