Qantas has refused to reveal a breakdown of its regional WA fare modelling after being accused of "price gouging" communities in mining towns with exorbitant flight prices.
The national airline on Monday fronted a Parliamentary inquiry into the high price of regional travel in WA and was forced to defend its intrastate fares which were described during the hearing as being up to "five times" a comparable fare in the eastern states.
After submitting what committee chair Jessica Shaw labelled a "light-weight submission" to the inquiry, Qantas domestic chief executive Andrew David and government, industry and international affairs group executive Andrew Parker repeatedly cited commercial confidence and regulatory restrictions when asked to provide a breakdown of their flight costs.
Mr Parker told the inquiry Qantas had last week introduced a 30 per cent discount on last minute personal travel from six regional hubs to Perth, in an attempt to ease the burden on those travelling for emergency or medical situations.
The discount, to be trialled for 12 months, will impact around two per cent of travellers, however Ms Shaw questioned the benefit of the scheme.
"Where's the compassion in that, taking 30 per cent off your most expensive fare?," she said.
"It's their only form of public transport, it's not a luxury for these people, it's a necessity."
Mr Parker said there were additional costs for operating in regional Western Australia, including fuel, maintenance and labour costs.
He also blamed higher landing fees at regional airports for pushing up costs, accusing councils of operating airports as "major profit centres" despite Australian Airport Association data showing most regional airports operated at a loss.
"Airports have a role to play," Mr Parker said, stating the per passenger costs - which were as high as $61 in Broome - were the reason low-budget airlines did not operate in regional WA.
"We don't fully understand why airport costs in WA are as high as they are... up to three times more expensive than regional New South Wales," he said.
Australian Airport Association chief executive Caroline Wilkie, during her evidence to the inquiry, said it was simple economics why regional WA airports were more expensive when compared to others.
"It is expensive to operate in regional centres... higher staff costs... higher costs to get equipment there... there is a reason it's so expensive to operate," she said.
Typically, airport charges account for around five to eight per cent of an airfare, however on regional WA routes, the charges are expected to account for up to 13 per cent, according to the AAA.
Qantas, as part of its 30 per cent discount offer to last minute travellers, requested regional airports reduce their landing fees, however Kalgoorlie has been the only airport to do so.
"I think it's really inappropriate that Qantas requested these airports to do this," Ms Wilkie said.
"It's $30 off a $1000 airfare when Qantas made a $1.4 billion profit this year."
Mr David argued a key cost issue for Qantas when operating between fly-in, fly-out towns was the "uni-directional" nature of flights meaning the flight to - for example - Karratha, was full, but the return flight was not.
"We put sale fares into the market and people don't buy them because people don't want to come to Perth at 10am on a Monday morning," he said.
"If you were to regulate, what we think would happen is average fares would go up - even with a fixed fare price, you're not going to fill those planes coming back."
Meanwhile, the idea to allow international airlines to stop off in WA's north-west and fill the remainder of their seats with inter-state travellers headed to Perth was quickly shut-down by Qantas, with Mr Parker describing the idea as having "grave and serious consequences" due to safety concerns.
Australian Airports Association national chairman Guy Thompson told the inquiry he was not aware of how the additional stop would change safety requirements, but highlighted the cost for a regional airport to have the required fire emergency service on site for each international landing would impact airline costs.
The committee has requested Qantas provide more evidence to the inquiry and, if necessary, utilise its right to have the information it provides which could be commercially sensitive, made confidential.
The inquiry continues with Virgin Australia due to give evidence later on Monday.