APLNG Meeting Brings Corporate and Chartered Aircraft Galore to Gladstone Airport on Thursday

What a busy day!

A reported Australia Pacific Liquefied Natural Gas (APLNG) meeting has brought a great variety of corporate and chartered aircraft to Gladstone Airport on Thursday 3 March.

The first arrival late on Wednesday 2 March was the Queensland Government (State of Queensland) Raytheon Hawker 850XP bizjet VH-SGY which called into Gladstone from Mackay where it spent most of Wednesday after arriving earlier in the day from Brisbane.  VH-SGY remained at Gladstone for the night and departed mid-afternoon on Thursday.

The other Queensland Government corporate aircraft - Raytheon B350 Super King Air VH-SGQ - also touched down at Gladstone early on Thursday 3 March from Brisbane.  It too departed Gladstone in the mid-afternoon but to Chinchilla.

A couple of other interesting arrivals that were clearly on charter flights to Gladstone on Thursday 3 March included a pair of Virgin Australia aircraft.  ATR 72-500 VH-FVX operated from and back to Brisbane as VOZ9003/9004 while Boeing B737-800 VH-YFR also operated from and back to Brisbane but as VOZ9005/9006.  Of interest, VH-YFR still wears small commemorative titles celebrating that it is the 100th aircraft operated by Virgin Australia / Virgin Blue Airlines.

Also visiting from Brisbane was Corporate Air / Vee H Aviation SAAB 340B VH-VEF.

Finally, during the afternoon, perhaps the star arrival on Thursday 3 March was Bechtel Corporation (an engineering and construction company) Dassault Falcon 900EX bizjet N960SF.

N960SF has been noted at Sydney and Brisbane over the last week and flew up to Gladstone from the capital before appearing to depart to Cairns.

Sincere thanks Col for the great photos he has sent through of a great day of plane spotting at Gladstone Airport!

All photos taken by Col  ©