Fog at Gladstone and Rockhampton Airport Causes Flight Delays and Diversions on Monday - And More to come Tuesday!

Early on Monday 23 June, Gladstone and Rockhampton Airports were fogged in after a thick layer rolled in.  And reports suggests that it didn't clear until mid-morning around 9-10am.

Fog at Gladstone Monday  (Photo taken by Michael Fleetwood  ©)

Consequently, there were some various flight delays and diversions into both Airports, with Rockhampton Airport affected the most.

Flight tracking website Flightaware had the morning Virgin Australia Regional Airlines (VARA) VOZ1231 flight - operated by ATR 72-600 VH-FVN - service flying up towards Rockhampton from Brisbane before spending some time holding and then eventually returning to Brisbane.  The early QantasLink flight into Rocky from Brisbane - QLK2362 - also flew North and spent time holding, however it diverted to Gladstone.  As the morning wore on, the QLK2352 service from Brisbane also spent time holding near Rockhampton, and eventually made a successful landing.  Finally, the South-bound QLK2301 'milk-run' flight from Cairns to Brisbane via Townsville, Mackay, Rockhampton and Gladstone, bypassed Rocky on its journey South, spending time holding North of Rockhampton Airport, before eventually flying from Mackay to Gladstone.

There were also a pair of Toll Freight (Toll Aviation) Metro flights scheduled to land at Rockhampton early on Monday from Brisbane, however it appears that one diverted to Emerald, while the other flew direct to Cairns.

Meanwhile, down the road at Gladstone, despite Gladstone Airport now an Instrument Landing System (ILS) the fog was bad enough to see the morning QLK2300 'milk-run' flight to from Brisbane to Cairns via Gladstone divert to Bundaberg.  It later flew into Gladstone and onto Mackay - bypassing Rockhampton.  It appears that this was the only flight affected by the fog with aircraft departing pretty much on time, and other aircraft landing after flying ILS approaches.

At the time of writing (Tuesday morning) it appears that there is again fog rolling into parts of CQ with viability reported at Rockhampton Airport being as low as 200 metres.  More flight delays and diversions are expected.