Major airline faces backlash after using ‘ghost flights’ to exploit a legal loophole: ‘They weren’t even selling tickets’::Ultimately, it’s incumbent on lawmakers to take steps to ensure this practice is discouraged.
If Melbourne had unlimited capacity for flights, yes. But that’s where the free market stuff tends to fail in reality, it works if you assume a market without natural limits, but not otherwise.
But a free market solution would be the airport increasing its prices until the demand at those prices matches how much capacity they have (and probably a push to add more capacity, or a build a new airport nearby, etc.)
The problem from Australia’s point of view is probably that this could cause their own airlines to be out-competed by foreign ones, or it could reduce the number of destinations where flights are viable, etc.
