Diversions and Cancellations Galore - Poor Weather in Central Queensland Monday

The poor weather has caused numerous diversions and cancellations on several Central Queensland Regular Passenger Transport (RPT) and fly-in fly-out (FIFO) charter flights on Monday 25 June.

Early in the day, QLK2452, the scheduled QantasLink Brisbane to Moranbah service operated by VH-QOD diverted to Mackay. VH-QOD then departed Mackay to Rockhampton as QLK2673, before departing Rockhampton to Brisbane as QLK2453. Later in the evening, the scheduled QantasLink QLK2522 Brisbane to Moranbah service was noted returning to Brisbane. It was operated by VH-QOS.

Mackay Airport has either played host to a lot of additional QantasLink flights, or there was a cancellation of a QantasLink flight or two, as on Monday 25 June, several additional flights from Brisbane to Mackay and return were noted operating this afternoon and evening.

UPDATE: I believe the following flights were scheduled FIFO charter flights that were supposed to fly from Brisbane to Moranbah, but instead flew to Mackay Airport with slightly different flight numbers.

Noted flying Mackay to Brisbane - at the time of posting - were QLK2677 (VH-QOJ) and QLK2951 (VH-QON). Return flights noted departing Brisbane and returning from Mackay were QLK2952/3, QLK2954/5, QLK2596 (VH-QOH), and QLK2598/9 (VH-LQF).

Also at Mackay Airport on Monday 25 June, Virgin Australia Boeing B737-800 VH-VUY was spotted arriving as DJ1281 – the scheduled Sydney to Hamilton Island service. VH-VUY was later noted ferrying back to Sydney direct from Mackay as DJ9060. (VH-VUY is shown below arriving into Hamilton Island earlier this year - thanks Jimi!)

Another diversion from Hamilton Island was a scheduled Jetstar Airways flight from Melbourne (Tullamarine). The JST860 flight diverted to Proserpine/Whitsunday Coast Airport and was operated by Airbus A320 VH-VFD – one of Jetstar’s recent acquisitions. VH-VFD then ferried to Brisbane as JST7983. It appears another aircraft operated the return flight to Melbourne from Hamilton Island.

Gladstone Airport also had bad weather. Jamie C alerted me to the fact that QantasLink (Cobham Aviation) Boeing B717-200 VH-NXO circling over the Airport waiting for a break in the cloud.

As the above screen-capture from FlightAware.com shows, VH-NXO did eventually land, but not before some 45 minutes or so of holding!

Lastly, all of Skytrans FIFO charters to Clermont Aerodrome were affected by the adverse weather in Clermont. It appears as though all five Dash-8 operated scheduled flights diverted to Emerald Airport.

The early morning SKP860 flight diverted to Emerald, while later, all four scheduled arrivals to Clermont also diverted to Emerald. The affected aircraft were VH-QQI, which was noted at Emerald Airport twice, while Dash-8-300’s VH-QQM and VH-QQP also stopped in at Emerald before departing to Townsville and Mackay Airports respectively as scheduled. VH-QQL was also believed to have diverted to Emerald.

What a day!