Sydney airport CEO accuses Qantas of strategically cancelling flights to block competition

Qantas has been accused of continuing to strategically cancel flights to block competition by Sydney airport’s chief executive as he warns the embattled airline is making it difficult for Australians to “fall in love with Qantas again”. Geoff Culbert, who is finishing as CEO at the end of the year, said recent behaviour from airlines “amazes” him despite public awareness of the allegation known as “slot hoarding”. Slot hoarding is where airlines schedule more flights than they intend to run, before cancelling them in a strategic manner so as to not cancel any service more than 20% of the time so they retain the slot at the expense of a competitor (known as the 80:20 rule). Qantas Group and Virgin have previously denied they misuse slots. The frustrations were aired at the Australian Airports Association (AAA) national conference in Melbourne on Wednesday, with pleas for law changes to stamp out the behaviour after months of questions about Qantas’ influence on government.<br/>Culbert said September cancellation data showed Qantas-owned Jetstar cancelled 9.9% of flights, Virgin cancelled 9.3% and Qantas cancelled 7.4% of flights on the Sydney-Melbourne route. “Interestingly, the cancellation rate for Rex was zero,” Culbert said of the formerly regional-only carrier that has recently expanded to compete on capital city routes. Culbert noted that while airlines cite weather delays and air traffic control shortages as reasons for frequent cancellations, there were 17 days in September with no such report disruptions during which there were 184 cancellations on Sydney-Melbourne – 52% of the monthly total.<br/>