That ICPA NT advocates for greater communication and awareness of travel options that may be available for NT boarding students if seats/tickets are available on ABStudy travel routes.
Abstudy boarding students can access flights, buses, charters for transport to and from boarding school with travel organised by the NT Government Student Travel Office within the Department of Education. Students who are not eligible for Abstudy but may be travelling on the same flights, bus or travel route are not aware if there may be seats available that are not utilised and go empty.
For example one ICPA Member's child attends boarding school in Toowoomba. They must drive to Darwin from home, fly from Darwin to Brisbane and then catch a bus from Brisbane to Toowoomba. The boarding school that they attend doesn’t offer a service to collect students from the airport. Flight scheduling for flights from Darwin to Brisbane suited this as the student could catch a redeye landing in Brisbane at 5am then catching the 6:30am bus to Toowoomba. Flight scheduling from Darwin to Brisbane has changed so the only direct flights available land in Brisbane after 5pm so the student can no longer catch the bus as the last bus leaves at 4pm. As they are not 18 they are not able to stay in a motel without an adult.
Any student flying through Abstudy would be met at the airport with a chaperone to travel on a charter to Toowoomba. There may be spare seats on this charter but non-Abstudy students and families are not made aware of these options.
Without this service it now means that any student flying into Brisbane to a school not directly in Brisbane will have to have an adult fly with them which means the additional cost of accommodation and return airfares
