City councillor Murray King, who has airport business interests, said it was appalling Albury-Wodonga was overlooked for subsidised regional airfares.

Merimbula and Avalon are the only country airports to benefit in NSW and Victoria.

"It's blinkered thinking, it's narrow-mindedness," Cr King said.

"I'm thinking it's a whiteboard exercise done in 20 minutes and they've thrown the darts and seen where they landed and they didn't land in Albury-Wodonga.

"It highlights the ignorance people have about the Border, you could have included Albury and the demographic would have included all of North East Victoria."

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Cr King wants Albury and Wodonga mayors to contact the government and seek the addition of the Border.

The flights deal follows Qantas expanding its Border routes.

"We're good enough to get flights from Melbourne and Brisbane through Qantas, but we're not good enough for the federal government to recognise we're one of the fastest growing regions in Australia and you can end up at Falls Creek in one and half hours and in premier wine regions in an hour," Cr King said.

Member for Farrer Sussan Ley noted, that unlike other destinations, the bulk of Border travellers came by road rather than air.

"The tourism market is a very big contributor to the Border's overall economy but we're much more reliant on people travelling here by car, I think it is something like 85 to 90 per cent visitors come by road," Ms Ley said.

"So my message to the state Premiers remains, please keep our borders open so people feel confident to get on the road and visit our beautiful region."

Murray Regional Tourism chief executive Mark Francis said it would have been "really helpful" for Albury and Mildura airports to have been included.

"The opportunity for them to perhaps expand that would be really welcome from our perspective," he said.

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