Christmas Island wants more tourists but luggage is often left behind

By Mietta Adams and Alistair Bates, ABC

The promise of a rugged, tropical island paradise sprawling with unique wildlife attracts visitors from far and wide to Christmas Island, but many travellers are shocked when their checked luggage does not arrive with them.

It is a regular occurrence on the remote Indian Ocean Territory, more than 1500km off Western Australia's coast, and a challenge for the island as it looks to grow its tourism industry.

Israel Crouch, a tourist from Margaret River, said it was "devastating" for his family to arrive without their baby seat and diving gear.

"It's pretty upsetting; you spend all this money coming over here to do these fun and exciting things, have the gear that's quite expensive, and then it doesn't show up," he said.

Twice a week, Virgin Australia flies passengers from Perth to Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands.

Their remote locations and unstable weather cycles mean planes must carry extra fuel in case they are required to divert to Perth or Jakarta, which means not all bags get loaded onto the planes.

Those bags are only loaded when space is available on future flights.

Crouch said it was "ludicrous" that a place trying to boost tourism had these issues, but said generous locals had kindly offered a baby seat within hours after landing.

Other tourists, such as Estelle Adams, who travelled to the island specifically to bird watch, had items like binoculars, shoes, mastectomy bathers, walking sticks, and heart medication offloaded.

While Adams packed enough additional medication in her hand luggage for one week, she said it would be a challenge to find more on the island.

"I didn't think I would need to have more meds than a week," she explained.

Her remaining items, including more medication dispensed from a Perth pharmacy, arrived seven days later.

"It's just very annoying and disappointing and pretty bad for tourism," she said.

A Virgin Australia spokesperson said safety is always the top priority, and operations to the islands require extensive planning due to the remoteness and weather.

The Christmas Island website states in its traveller essentials section that it was "highly recommended people pack their most valuable items into their carry-on luggage, in case their baggage was offloaded".

Christmas Island Tourism Association chair and resident David Watchorn said people often had their bags offloaded, including tourists arriving without their priority luggage.

"It's in our quarterly report, it happens regularly," Watchorn said.

'Feast or famine' food culture

Unreliable services from the mainland are nothing new to locals, who rely on fortnightly air freight and a cargo ship every six weeks to deliver vital supplies and fresh produce.

Being able to dock or land with supplies is also dependent on the weather.

Watchorn describes the island as having a "feast or famine food culture", depending on the length of time since the last delivery.

And the feast is never cheap.

"I paid $8.50 for an avocado - $20 for eggs," Watchorn said, recounting his last shop.

Cafe owner Nasir Adon said it was difficult to plan menus, especially when certain products did not arrive.

"I don't even look at receipts anymore when I pay," Adon said.

"Living here, you just learn to deal with the punches and go on, it's quite a unique place."

Growing fresh produce is a challenge because of the island's phosphate-dense soil and lack of freehold land.

A hydroponics project called Green Space Tech has been experimenting with ways to grow fresh food locally to help the community become less dependent on expensive and unreliable air and sea freight.

"If we can bring in more options for them, then that is only going to improve people's quality of life, but also be more attractive to more people from the outside as well," Green Space Tech manager Ken Hawkins said.

Hawkins said a variety of produce was now being supplied to locals and businesses, helping them in periods between freight deliveries.

"The island is magnificent - the infrastructure is a bit ordinary," he said.

He said once that was improved, their island home would certainly be a "bucket list" destination.

Extra flights, capacity planned

Virgin Australia's contract to supply air services to the Indian Ocean Territories expires on 30 October 2025.

The government selected Qantas to take over the service from 3 November, and different aircraft will be used.

The new arrangement will see an additional flight to the territories once a month, which is expected to bring an extra 5,000 passengers and an additional 200 tonnes of air freight per year.

Qantas did not address the topic of offloading bags when asked by the ABC, but it is understood that those decisions will also be determined by factors such as weather conditions.

Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) Islands administrator Farzian Zainal hopes the new arrangement will bolster tourism on the island.

"The supply chains are very fragile; they're very dependent on how the weather is on the day," she said.

"Having that extra capacity it means we have access to a lot more things that other people have on the mainland."

Zainal said she also expected long-term benefits for the community, including cheaper fares.

A Virgin Australia Group spokesperson said the airline was proud to have served Christmas Island and Cocos (Keeling) Islands for nearly a decade.

- ABC