QantasLink Boeing B717-200 VH-YQW 'Tassie Devil' Special Livery Surprise Visit to Gladstone Airport Wednesday

Making a very surprise visit to Gladstone Airport on Wednesday 13 January was QantasLink (Cobham Aviation) Boeing B717-200 VH-YQW.  It was noted to be operating the scheduled QJE1704/1705 service from and back to Brisbane.

It appeared that VH-YQW 'replaced' fellow QantasLink B717-200 VH-NXQ which was originally scheduled to operate the flight.

VH-NXQ was operating a delayed QJE1760/1761 service to Mackay.  Earlier, another B717-200 VH-NXL was operating from Brisbane to Mackay as QJE1760 but turned back to Brisbane mid-flight with a technical problem.

As shown above, VH-YQW wears very unique decals and is named 'The Tassie Devil'.  It is also one of five QantasLink B717 aircraft that has a 2-class configuration with 125 seats, along with Q-Streaming - Qantas' wireless entertainment system.  It is a fairly regular visitor to Hervey Bay (Fraser Coast) Airport, but this visit to Gladstone was a great surprise!

Finally, over the course of Monday 11 January to Wednesday 13 January, Virgin Australia operated Embraer E-190 jets on the early morning VOZ1707/1710 service from and back to Brisbane with VH-ZPF, VH-ZPM and VH-ZPE (shown below on Wednesday) calling in.

Sincere thanks to Col for sending through these great photos!

All photos taken by Col  ©