Chapter 5 in Duval, D (ed) “Asia Pacific Aviation”. Ashgate. The Asia Pacific Region and Australian Aviation Kevin O’Connor Monash University and Kurt Fuellhart Shippensburg University 1. Introduction The Asia-Pacific region has had an important influence upon Australian aviation over a long time period. The elements of that influence have varied over time, however, as the connections between Australia and the countries to its east and north have changed. This paper will explore that change, concentrating in particular on the period since the middle 1980s. From that time the direction, strength and diversity of links between Australia and the Asia-Pacific region changed rapidly. Those changes were seen in new trade, migration and tourism connections. In response to that evolving context, the aviation industry itself underwent change, with a new set of airlines operating into and out of Australia, on new routes, with different aircraft and (in some cases) under new regulatory arrangements. This paper explores the connections between these two sets of circumstances and isolates those regions, routes and airlines that have felt the most significant gains and losses as Australia and the Asia-Pacific region cement new connections. The origin of air transportation links between Australia and the Asia-Pacific region lay in economic and cultural ties derived from British colonial structures, especially with New Zealand, Malaya (as then constituted) and Hong Kong. Airports in these places provided stopping points along a few thin lines that led to Britain and Europe (to the north-west) and to the US (north east via Japan and east via Hawai. O’Connor’s (1995a) research on the evolution of the Qantas services shows the 1970 network (including Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Calcutta, New Delhi, Bombay and Karachi) aligned across the southern part of the Asian continent, while a second line stretched across the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii, via Auckland and Nadi. To the north Manila was a stop on routes to Hong Kong and Tokyo. The traffic along these thin lines reflected Australia’s preferential trade connections with Britain (until that country joined the then European Common Market in 1973), its preference for migrants from Britain and Europe, and steadily growing post World War 2 links with the US. Flights At that time BOAC, KLM, Alitalia, Olympic and Pan Am aircraft were seen regularly at Australia’s airports,. That skeletal structure has changed. In what has been described as a “principal axis shift” by Vining et al. (1982) and illustrated in South East Asia by O’Connor (1995b), the underlying grain of air travel from Australia to the region changed toward a northern orientation. This shift was a response to an on-going process of economic development that changed the role of Asia