Roundtable to help take region’s industry to new heights
Cairns Airport is helping grow the region’s tourism sector, playing host to the latest Airport Roundtable from May 31 to June 2.
Cairns Airport chief executive Richard Barker said the series of conferences was a great way for airlines and airports to build relationships and air services.
“It strengthens our position with airlines as they make decisions about where they fly to,” he said.
“The roundtable enables human connection, which is something we haven’t been able to do with airlines for a couple of years during Covid.”
While domestic aviation at Cairns is close to where it was before the pandemic arrived, the international sector is still
clawing back its pre-Covid place month by month.
“We’re now in the range of 65-70 per cent of where we were pre-Covid,” Mr Barker said.
“At a regional level, it’s really been about the recovery in domestic aviation and our major airlines getting back to their previous capacity.”
He said a major development had been the growth in smaller airlines like Rex, Alliance Airlines and Skytrans servicing the northern region, as well as Bonza, which is creating opportunities for new routes and further expanding domestic travel.
“Airlines love Cairns,” Mr Barker said.
“They recognise that the Great Barrier Reef, our World Heritage rainforests and Aboriginal culture makes this a world-class destination.”
The roundtables are designed to help the players in the airline industry talk to each other, and to work out ways to overcome stumbling blocks.
The challenge here, Mr Barker said, was rebuilding aircraft capacity and flight crews.
“They’ve got to get back to servicing some of the biggest cities in the world before they necessarily have the crew and aircraft to be able to fly to Cairns,” he said.