Travel bubbles will help airports recover

Justin, thanks so much for speaking with me. So, six months on from when we last spoke, I’m sure a lot has changed. How has Avalon adapted, and where do you stand now?

The past six months, well, it certainly was up and down for us, and everyone else across the industry. I must say though, I’m very optimistic now, especially domestically. The airport itself has opened back up, we’ve been operating for a few months already, once the domestic borders started to settle. Although we do know the borders can often quickly be brought into question, even today, there’s been talk of domestic border closures over one COVID case in another state. But overall, we are seeing capacity increase and load factors increase, which is good news for us.

Jetstar, the exclusive domestic carrier for Avalon, has advised us that they’re scheduled to return back to full domestic capacity within the next couple of weeks, to coincide with the beginning of the school holidays, which is really promising for us. In terms of activity, we’re still only at around 60 per cent currently, so it’s exciting to think that could be back up to 100 per cent within the next few weeks. And that has already allowed us to bring all our staff back on board.

Wow, that’s great to hear. Are all of your staff back to their pre-COVID full-time hours?

All our staff have successfully returned to work, though there are still some that are operating at reduced hours compared to normal times. And this is because some of our internal operations at the airport, such as our retail shops, and our food and beverage options, there just isn’t enough demand to justify having them all open at pre-pandemic levels. For example, we have three cafés within the airport, however only one of them is up and running at the moment. We are looking to open the second cafe within the next two weeks, in line with Jetstar’s decision to ramp up operations. So that will mean we’ll be able to engage more staff, which I’m excited about. Though if there’s anything I’ve learned through the pandemic, it’s that you can get excited, but don’t get too excited. This is a classic example of don’t count your chickens before they hatch!

Exactly right. Avalon was included as one of the destinations in the federal government’s Tourism Aviation Network Support (TANS) Program, what does that mean for the airport?

So, we haven’t heard any of the details, currently I believe the airlines are still working through the details, and what the scheme really means for them, as well as the specifics for scheduling and so on. But it’s great that Avalon has been included, which recognises the significance of Avalon as a regional airport, which we are.

In normal times, we’d welcome a lot of international tourists who were coming from overseas to see the Great Ocean Road and other parts of regional Victoria. So that decision was clearly targeted and it’s very welcomed by us. I believe the half-price flights will only be implemented on a couple of our services, but again, we are still waiting to hear formal advice on where that’s at. But it’s a great scheme and it does show that the government recognises just how hard the aviation and tourism sectors have been hit, and continue to be. You know, unlike other industries, we can’t really adapt to being online-only like retailers, or anything like that. We can only do what we can do until people are ready and allowed to fly again. I think what we have been able to do through the resilience and the change that the industry has seen is create a space for people to do that, and to feel more comfortable flying again. But we still haven’t been able to recover fully just yet in this industry.

Obviously COVID-19 has brought about a whole range of what could have been insurmountable challenges, and yet here we are, with an industry that’s ready to ramp up. What sorts of opportunities do you think you’ve been able to form out of this crisis?

I think quite few, actually. It’s enabled us to reassess lots of parts of our business. I have no doubt that we have become a lot more efficient, largely because we’ve had to become a lot more cost conscious. So today there’s been a lot of costs which have been removed from our business which will never return. We were also able to do a lot of upgrades to the airport, which are very difficult to do when you’ve constantly got people around and moving through. So that was a great opportunity for us. I personally think the best and most positive opportunity to come out of this was to really get to know our staff, and to understand just how good they are and how flexible and resilient they could be. And for us, not even just our staff, but also some of our contractors.

One great example is, when this all first happened, we suspended our cleaning contract with a great cleaning company. And they actually came in and trained our staff how to clean our facilities to get us through the crisis. Last time we spoke we discussed how we moved one of our workers from her café job onto a contract painting the terminal because she had done a painting apprenticeship. It was so important for us to try and keep as many of our in-house staff still employed however we could, if there was an appropriate role. But for our contractor to come in and teach our staff those skills so they could do that. How good is that? I’ll never forget that. So as soon as we could afford to, we got that cleaning contract renewed and those contractors back. These are all the different kinds of opportunities we were given in the crisis.

So, what do you think is next for Avalon and for the industry more generally?

I think that Australia is in a really strong position, we have effectively eradicated the virus and that’s a position that needs to be protected. I think we’ll continue to need a really well-established quarantine system, along with these ‘travel bubbles’ that we’ve heard a lot about. There’ll be a bubble with New Zealand, no doubt, as well as probably with Singapore and Vietnam. And that’s because, realistically, international travel will remain a risk as some parts of the world, such as parts of Africa, and those rural places, will have trouble distributing the COVID vaccine.

So, while we need to protect Australia’s strong position, we need to do it in a way which is viable going forward, and that’s important not only for us on an individual level but also for the economy. There are international students that need to get to Australia who have been locked out. And of course, there’s people we need to bring in for the purposes of tourism, as so many sectors and small businesses rely on that too. Then we have imports and exports, and cargo needs. I personally think we need to have a really robust quarantine system, and then that trusted bubble travel system, if we want to see international travel anytime soon. And I think all of this will begin to emerge throughout this year, and then really develop and take hold into next year.

I see these bubbles working almost like free trade agreements, and there will be big announcements behind them, as well as some caveats, so everyone is happy. We’ll likely need a vaccine or some other proof of wellness to fly, if the country you’re headed to wants that. But I am very optimistic about all this occurring, and happening soon. It’s going to be a very exciting time, it’s going to be a period of great change, as people are able to get out and go overseas again, and the industry will adapt to that once more. And I think ultimately, it’s great not just for Australia but for everyone around the world.