The Australian government yesterday refused Singapore Airlines (SIA) access to the lucrative Australia-US route in the face of concerted lobbying by rival Qantas.
A spokesman for Transport Minister John Anderson said the decision was made last week after top-level discussions. Media reports said that Anderson, who had sent positive signals about giving SIA access to the prized route, was overruled by the normally pro-free trade Prime Minister John Howard.
"The issue of trans-Pacific access has been considered at the highest levels by the Australian government and it has decided that the time is not right for Singapore Airlines to be granted access to the route," the spokesman said.
He said SIA, which has been lobbying for access for three years, had not been given an indication about when the issue might be reconsidered.
SIA said it was disappointed but not surprised with the decision and would continue to fight for access to the route.
"We restate our view that the delay is a disappointment, but not surprising, given that the decision has been deferred several times previously," an SIA spokesman said in Singapore.
"Singapore Airlines is seeking the ability to compete beyond Australia in the same way that Qantas now competes beyond Singapore," he said. "We ask for a level playing field -- for consumers to be given the opportunity to make choices [on travel] between the USA and Australia."
SIA said Australian travelers and the tourism industry would be the losers from the government's decision to maintain the status quo on what it described as one of the most protected air routes in the world.
SIA recently released details of a report it sent to Canberra which claimed that giving it access to the Australia-US route would generate an extra A$126 million Australian (US$96 million) a year from US tourism spending in Australia. The report also said fares would drop and growth in demand for travel to Australia from the US would grow by 4 percent to 8 percent.
Howard, a fierce critic of Japanese and EU protectionist policies who takes pride in his free-trade credentials, telephoned his Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong last week to tell him of the decision.
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