Question Without Notice No. 200 asked in the Legislative Council on 29 March 2018 by Hon Jacqui Boydell
Parliament: 40 Session: 1
SKIPPERS AVIATION — PERTH–CARNARVON ROUTE
200. Hon JACQUI BOYDELL to the minister representing the Minister for Transport:
I refer to the regular public transport flight route between Perth and Carnarvon.
(1) Is Skippers Aviation fulfilling its contract with the state government?
(2) Given that services have declined significantly, what has the minister done to ensure Skippers is maintaining services as required by that government contract?
(3) With key tourism events and school holidays nearing, what will the minister do to ensure services continue to operate to an appropriate standard between now and the end of the Skippers Aviation contract?
Hon STEPHEN DAWSON replied:
I thank the honourable member for some notice of the question.
I do not seem to have any answers for questions lodged today for that minister. We will chase them down and find why they are not in the folder. If they come in, I will provide them at the end of the question time; and, if not, I will try to provide them as part of members' statements if that is possible. I will certainly endeavour to provide the answers today. If anyone else has lodged a question to the Minister for Police today, they do not seem to be here at the moment.
[The following material was incorporated; see page 1469.]
(1) No. Skippers Aviation is operating at a reduced schedule of services due to a significant loss of pilots in recent months.
(2) The Department of Transport (DoT) has had substantial engagement with Skippers Aviation over recent weeks. This has resulted in Skippers increasing the size of its planes from 30 seat to 50 seat planes on some services which provides an increased seat capacity despite a reduced schedule.
(3) DoT will continue to liaise with Skippers in respect of its schedule for services for Carnarvon over the remaining period of the deed agreement with the State Government. The Government has appointed Regional Express Airlines to operate on this route from 2 July2018.