High cost of travel

FINALLY someone has woken up to the fact that air travel in Papua New Guinea is among the highest in the world.
The high airfares is hindering the people’s ability to travel. It is also affecting the tourism industry.
Many travel agents say airfares to and from USA and Europe into Asia is half the price as compared to fares from Daru to Manus or Buka.
Airfares between Cairns and Brisbane, on a distance of 864 miles, is roughly around K420 (single sector). Flight time two hours, 26 minutes.
The domestic route of Port Moresby to Manus (507 miles) is charged K704.50 (single sector) depending if you find a cheaper or discounted fare. Flight time is one hour, 27 minutes.
Port Moresby (Jackson) to Lae (Nadzab) is about 200 miles (flight time of 52 minutes) is charged around K382 (one way).
Airfares from Australian cities, Cairns to Townsville (distance of 176 miles) is around K328. Flight time around 49 minutes.
Frequent flyers will have noticed that airfares, even the cheapest ones, are also going up.
It is no secret that airfares in PNG are set so high and that it has only increased over the years.
How do we attract tourists into PNG when the airfares alone and the hotel accommodation are the killers?
For the same amount spent domestically, one could not only fly to somewhere else for a week’s holiday, but also cover accommodation and some local transportation.
If the person is not particularly, he could also pay for food.
Prices go up and down for many reasons. No one can really predict when or if a price will change.
Only the airline knows that.
But there are four things that drive prices: competition, supply, demand, and oil prices.
The first and last items are the ones that really affect prices the most. Here in PNG, they say government and airport taxes contribute also the increase.
Doing business in Papua New Guinea is high – that’s a fact which has been raised so many times.
And it’s no secret that security is one of the biggest expenses, as well as transportation.
Together, all these things affect what the airline industry refer to as the load factor.
Airlines want to fill their planes and maximise profits, and they do this by calculating a plane’s load factor. Essentially, this is the percentage of seats sold on a flight. They want this number to be as high as possible.
Why other countries air fares are cheap, both domestic and international flights while it is more in PNG.
Airlines are constantly trying to strike a balance between these two types so they can make a profit. Why fly a plane full of cheap fares when you can get people to pay more?
Let’s be realistic, the days of cheap airfares are over. But by understanding how tickets are priced, you can avoid being the person who paid the most.
But not everyone has the savvy to that so, the government must urgently look in to the most expensive airfares the people of this nation face.
For now, citizens and residents of PNG have no choice but to feel the pinch of the cost to travel from one province to another.