Qantas Aircraft Changes and Bizjets Come and Go at Hamilton Island Airport

It was interesting to note that on Saturday 21 February, Qantas Airways operated the larger Boeing B737-800 on their Brisbane to Hamilton Island service, instead of a QantasLink-operated Dash-8-Q400.  The flight was operated by VH-XZE and had the flight number of QFA1342(QLK2824)/QFA1343(QLK2825).

VH-XZE photographed at Gladstone late last year  (File photo taken by Col  ©)

Also, QantasLink Dash-8-Q400 VH-QOH was noted operating the daily Qantas flight to Hamilton Island from and back to Cairns on Saturday 21 February and again on Sunday 22 February.  These flights are usually operated by the smaller Dash-8-Q300.

It would appear that Qantas and QantasLink suspended flights into Hamo late last week, with only Jetstar and Virgin flights operating into the there on Friday 20 February.  I would suspect the larger aircraft operating the weekend's flights are to clear any backlog of travellers into Hamo.

Meanwhile, on Sunday 22 February, Premiair (PT Ekspres Transportasi Antarbenua) of Indonesia, Embraer Lineage 1000 (ERJ-190-100ECJ) bizjet N28888 departed Hamilton Island for Brisbane.  It had arrived from Cairns on Thursday 19 February - see Blog post below.

And Shortstop Jet Charter British Aerospace BAe-125-1000B bizjet VH-LMP made yet another visit to Hamo, arriving from and later departing back to Melbourne (Essendon) also on Sunday 22 February.