Mascot (TAN): Australia’s flagship carrier Qantas has removed the change fee for regional flights so that residents from regional Australia no longer need to pay up AUD99 for bookings made through the airline’s discounted fares programme.
Residents in certain regional cities put up with escalating costs of air travel either because the cities witness a lot of visitors owing to the presence of resources industry or because the destinations are remotely located. The discounted fares programme was introduced in November 2017 to address this concern.
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Qantas said they scrapped the change fee to provide passengers with ‘greater flexibility and additional savings’ in case there was a change in their travel plans, and make the ‘discounted fares more accessible for more residents’.
The airline offered residents 20 to 30 per cent discounts on return fares for trips to their closest capital city. Residents booked over 18,000 return trips across 14 regional cities that qualified under the programme.
Qantas Domestic Chief Executive Officer Andrew David said: “As the national carrier, we know how important accessible and reliable air travel is for communities across regional Australia which is why we offer discounted fares for residents. We recognise that some residents have been reluctant to book these fares in circumstances where they didn’t have a firm return date. By removing the flight change fee, we’re eliminating this obstacle and giving customers the flexibility to change their flights at a reduced cost if their travel plans change.”
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“We’ve seen a strong uptake since we launched the discounted fares, but we’d like to make it easier for even more residents to take advantage of the savings available and expect this change will give them the confidence to do so. There are some fundamental realities about the costs of operating regional services that we can’t change, but we’ll continue to listen and respond to community feedback,” he added.
Residents looking to change their flight may need to pay the difference between the fare for the new booking and the original fare.
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I’ve had a slight change of situation with my flight Tuesday 14th January 2020 with a return flight Roma-Brisbane, and just wondering if I can put the ticket on holdover to use at a later date?