Rock challenge ... Virgin has taken on Qantas on the Sydney-Uluru route.
Virgin Blue has broken the Qantas monopoly on Uluru but long-term viability is still a concern, writes Clive Dorman.
Airfares to the Red Centre fell last week with the introduction of the first challenge to the Qantas monopoly on services from Sydney to Uluru.
Fares rose steeply after the collapse of Ansett in 2001 and have rarely been less than $300 one-way from any destination in Australia.
After three years of private negotiations with Voyages, the operator of Ayers Rock Resort and the Ayers Rock airport, Virgin Blue began a daily service last week between Sydney and Uluru with fares from $198 one-way, compared with Qantas's best regular fare of $275. (This week Qantas was quoting special fares as low as $248.)
The inaugural flight was crewed by the carrier's indigenous staff and its only Aboriginal pilot, Kali Bellear.
The only other competition for Qantas to central Australia is from Tiger Airways, which operates three services a week to Alice Springs from Melbourne's Tullamarine with fares from about $100 one-way. However, the destination has been so marginal for Tiger it has dropped two weekly services from Adelaide and will shift the three weekly services from Melbourne to the low-cost Avalon airport from November.
The Red Centre has always been a hard sell for Australia's domestic airlines and Virgin Blue admits it will be relying heavily on European and American travellers to make the service to Uluru viable. Through V Australia and Virgin Blue, Virgin now has the only daily service from Los Angeles to Uluru that connects in both directions for the American market. Virgin Blue says it has the option of joining more of the dots in its network by adding services to Uluru from other points such as Perth or Cairns.
Qantas depends on the Japanese market and operates twice-daily non-stop flights between Uluru and Cairns with its subsidiary, Jetstar, for visitors arriving from Japanese cities.
Of interest to international travellers hoping to include Uluru on their itineraries is Virgin Blue's air pass, the only branded airline air-pass available for travel around Australia for
foreign visitors. (Qantas participates in an Australian air-pass program only through the oneworld alliance.)
Air passes went out of fashion in Australia in the 1990s but Virgin Blue says it has revived the idea by offering travellers the ability to change routes, times and dates without penalty, while older air-pass programs were more rigid.
Virgin Blue says the air pass might eventually be offered domestically in Australia but, as a GST-free international airfare option, it would be too confusing to try to mix it with existing fares.
Uluru tourism operators, meanwhile, are attempting to devise ways to promote the area without depending on the rock climb.
About a third of Uluru's 300,000 annual visitors climb the rock. Some operators are worried that if the climb is closed to comply with the wishes of the local Aboriginal owners, as Parks Australia has mooted, some tourists will avoid the destination altogether.
"We can't just close the climb without a long-term solution," says Voyages Resort's chief executive Chris Tallent. "There has to be an alternative. We want globally recognised activities based around cultural tourism.''
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