QantasLink Capacity Growth for Central Queensland Airports

Monday 7 March – sourced from Qantas.com.au

QantasLink has today announced that it will add approximately 5,000 seats across a range of Queensland regional routes, with the arrival of another new Dash-8-Q400 aircraft from 6 April 2011.

Over coming months, the Central Queensland towns of Barcaldine, Blackall, Emerald, Gladstone, Longreach, Mackay, Moranbah, and Rockhampton, as well as Bundaberg, Hervey Bay, and Roma will all benefit from additional and upgraded services to and from Brisbane.

Details of the additional seats and Brisbane return services per week for Central Queensland Airports – from Wednesday 6 April:
* Emerald – an additional 888 seats per week (22% growth) – weekly return services to increase by six to 34 return flights.
* Gladstone – an additional 392 seats per week (6% growth) – weekly return services to increase by two to 46 return flights
* Mackay – an additional 148 seats per week (4% growth) – weekly return services to increase by one to 25 return flights
* Moranbah – an additional 868 seats per week (86% growth) – weekly return services to increase by nine to 20 return flights – including a new early morning flight from Brisbane Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, allowing day return travel
* Rockhampton – an additional 880 seats per week (13% growth) – weekly return services to increase to 47 return flights
* Short term capacity upgrades using Dash-8-Q400 aircraft will be provided for Longreach, Barcaldine and Blackall.

The major expansion of services linking Brisbane and Moranbah is in response to demand from the local coal and resources industries. Further expansion of Moranbah capacity, by upgrading more services to Dash-8-Q400 aircraft, will follow once the local airport upgrade is completed (see the CQPlanespotting blog post HERE).

QantasLink Executive Manager, Mr Narendra Kumar, said the increase in capacity would also support the recovery of many central, western and south east Queensland communities affected by the recent devastating floods.

Many of these additional flights will be operated by the 74-seat Dash-8-Q400 aircraft. The recent arrival of yet another new Dash-8-Q400 will see 12 of these 74-seat aircraft based in Queensland, and with 10 other Dash 8 aircraft dedicated to Queensland flying, QantasLink's Queensland Dash 8 fleet will total 22.