The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission’s latest Domestic Airline Competition Report, released on 16 June 2026, paints a challenging picture for mobility budgets. Jet-fuel prices in early June were more than 40 per cent above February levels, with refinery margins at a two-year high. To offset the spike, the Qantas Group and Virgin Australia have quietly trimmed frequencies on a raft of secondary routes—Adelaide–Mount Gambier, Alice Springs–Brisbane and Darwin–Gold Coast among them—and lifted headline economy fares by about five per cent.
![ACCC warns higher fuel prices are squeezing Australian domestic capacity and pushing up fares]()
Amid this tightening airfare environment, companies still juggling cross-border projects can lean on VisaHQ’s end-to-end visa and passport services to keep travellers moving. The online platform (https://www.visahq.com/australia/) helps organisations secure the right travel documents quickly, integrates with duty-of-care tools and supplies real-time status updates, sparing mobility teams additional administrative burden just as fares increase.
While demand remained robust through Easter and the Grand Prix, the ACCC cautions that the full impact on ticket prices will only become evident over the northern-hemisphere summer. Average revenue per passenger actually fell 3.4 per cent in April because many tickets had been bought months earlier. Forward bookings now reflect the higher fare environment, signalling steeper travel costs for corporates arranging second-half-year meetings and project travel. On the upside, reliability metrics are improving. April on-time arrivals hit 82.9 per cent—the best since February 2022—thanks to calmer weather and fewer air-traffic-control restrictions. Qantas posted an industry-leading 85.8 per cent, a statistic travel managers may cite when weighing carrier preference against price. The regulator also flagged growing interest from would-be challengers Zinc Airlines and Koala Airlines. Although entry is far from guaranteed, the ACCC’s public endorsement sends a signal to investors and policymakers that more competition is welcome. In the meantime, procurement teams should revisit travel-policy thresholds, talk to carriers about maintaining negotiated discounts on re-priced fare bases, and encourage employees to book further in advance to blunt the fuel-surcharge effect.
Amid this tightening airfare environment, companies still juggling cross-border projects can lean on VisaHQ’s end-to-end visa and passport services to keep travellers moving. The online platform (https://www.visahq.com/australia/) helps organisations secure the right travel documents quickly, integrates with duty-of-care tools and supplies real-time status updates, sparing mobility teams additional administrative burden just as fares increase.
While demand remained robust through Easter and the Grand Prix, the ACCC cautions that the full impact on ticket prices will only become evident over the northern-hemisphere summer. Average revenue per passenger actually fell 3.4 per cent in April because many tickets had been bought months earlier. Forward bookings now reflect the higher fare environment, signalling steeper travel costs for corporates arranging second-half-year meetings and project travel. On the upside, reliability metrics are improving. April on-time arrivals hit 82.9 per cent—the best since February 2022—thanks to calmer weather and fewer air-traffic-control restrictions. Qantas posted an industry-leading 85.8 per cent, a statistic travel managers may cite when weighing carrier preference against price. The regulator also flagged growing interest from would-be challengers Zinc Airlines and Koala Airlines. Although entry is far from guaranteed, the ACCC’s public endorsement sends a signal to investors and policymakers that more competition is welcome. In the meantime, procurement teams should revisit travel-policy thresholds, talk to carriers about maintaining negotiated discounts on re-priced fare bases, and encourage employees to book further in advance to blunt the fuel-surcharge effect.
