Rhonda Bracey: At Random

This lobbed into my email inbox this morning — ‘cheap’ flights from Perth to several intrastate, interstate, and international destinations:

Let’s take a look at those return flight prices and you’ll see why the Australian national and state tourism bodies have an uphill battle to get Australians to visit Australian destinations. I’ll list them in order of price, from lowest to highest, and, for those who live outside Australia, I’ve included a map (the numbers on the map correspond to the numbers below):

1. Denpasar (Bali, Indonesia)): $192
2. Melbourne: $212
3. Sydney: $226
4. Singapore: $256
5. Esperance: $338
6. Albany: $356
7. Brisbane: $403
8. Coolangatta: $475

Esperance and Albany are both within Western Australia, so flights there will take the shortest amount of time from Perth (take a look at the map to see how short these flights are — Albany is about 1 hour, Esperance about 1.5 hours). Therefore, you’d except them to be the cheapest. Nope. They are the 3rd and 4th most expensive flights!

The cheapest flights from Perth according to this ad are to Denpasar (Bali), Melbourne, Sydney and Singapore, with only $60 or so separating them. All those flights are at least three hours long, with the flight to Singapore just over 5 hours long.

The most expensive flights are to Brisbane and Coolangatta (the closes airport to Queensland’s Gold Coast), which is not surprising as they are some of the longest flights at around 5 hours each (but about the same as the flight time to Singapore and for a much higher price).

No wonder Western Australians flock to Bali and Singapore in their hundreds of thousands. Not only are the flights cheap, but once you get there, the on-ground prices are much cheaper too (accommodation, meals, transport etc.).