Qantas is closing its retail Travel Centres throughout Australia – except for the smallest and most remote.

It will shut the Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, Cairns and Townsville centres, but keep the outlet going in the mining town of Nhulunbuy, Gove, in far-flung Arnhem Land, about 650km by air from Darwin.

The all-pervasive internet has been blamed for the demise of Qantas face-to-face ticket sales operations, an element of the airline’s sales for decades. As the carrier’s specialist retail stores in Australia, Qantas Travel Centres employed over 150 full-time consultants with an average of 14 years travel industry experience. How many the Nhulunbuy outlet employs is not known.

Melbourne’s Sun-Herald newspaper quoted a Qantas spokesperson as saying the decision was difficult, “but the centres have not been profitable for some years and, in spite of a range of changes made, there is no prospect that they will be profitable”.

The Qantas spokesperson said redeployment opportunities within Qantas would be available for affected employees, though redundancies were likely.

The airline attributed its decision to the growth of e-tickets, online sales and servicing, changes in customer demographics and increased competition from other distribution channels “including retail travel agents”, according to the paper.  Agents might be interested to learn that.