Tourism—Aviation activity
Brief ministerial statement
Mr Reece Whitby (Baldivis—Minister for Tourism) (1:17 pm): I rise to update the house on the Cook Labor government's steadfast progress in building Western Australia's reputation as a fast-growing aviation hub. Flight scheduling for the month of May shows international aviation capacity into WA is now at 127% of pre-COVID levels, so we have added it all back and we have added to it. This result is testament to the target investment we are making to attract new partnerships with airlines from around the world and, of course, the efforts of previous tourism ministers. An example of this is the recent announcement by Qantas, which will launch two new nonstop international routes into Perth from Auckland and Johannesburg. Both routes will operate three times per week from this December, adding nearly 80,000 inbound seats into Western Australia each year.
Similarly, we have just announced a strategic marketing campaign with AirAsia, targeting visitors from Malaysia, which is WA's fifth-largest international visitor market. The campaign complements the resumption of twice-daily flights between Kuala Lumpur and Perth via AirAsia from June 23, bringing the number of airline services from Malaysia into WA to 40 every week.
In more good news, Virgin will commence a new daily return service between Doha and Perth on 26 June, operated under the Virgin Australia and Qatar Airways partnership. The double daily services will result in an overall capacity increase of 40% from Doha, equating to almost 70,000 additional inbound seats into WA each year. The additional service is a great coup for WA, strengthening our connectivity to more than 30 European and American airports.
Also announced is the return of China Southern's seasonal three-weekly return service to Perth, providing over 14,000 inbound seats from Guangzhou. Alongside our Perth airport partners, we continue to advocate for year-round services from mainland China and India, another of our top aviation priorities.
On the domestic front, there were 1,685 domestic flights in May, with a total of 306,000-plus seats available, reflecting a 109% increase in frequency compared with pre-COVID numbers. Qantas will launch a new direct route from Perth to Busselton three times weekly from 27 June, improving access to the South West region for local, interstate and international visitors. This is in addition to our Affordable Airfares program, which is back for its seventh year, continuing to make travel within WA more affordable for residents and visitors. These developments are a strong reflection of our government's ongoing commitment to strengthening our aviation connectivity, which is vital to growing our tourism sector and delivering on our Made in WA plan.
