Improved Weather in the Whitsundays sees Flights Resume and Attempts to Clear the Backlog of Passengers

After a couple of days of flight cancellations and disruptions, both Virgin Australia and Jetstar Airways have attempted to clear some of the passenger backlog on Sunday 8 January by operating additional flights into both Proserpine / Whitsunday Coast and Hamilton Island Airports.

File photo

After diverting the inbound flight and thus cancelling the outbound flight the previous day to and form Hamilton Island Airport, Virgin Australia operated an extra flight from and back to Sydney operated by Boeing B737-800 VH-YVA as VOZ9535/9534.

At Proserpine Airport - where there has been two days of no commercial flight operations - Sunday saw numerous flights from and back to Brisbane with two Jetstar Airways Airbus A320 flights - VH-VFH as JST830/833 and VH-VFN as JST836/837 - and three Virgin Australia flights - Embraer E-190 VH-ZPQ as VOZ1115/1116, Boeing B737-800 VH-YFS as VOZ1117/1118 and an extra Boeing B737-800 VH-VUV as VOZ9531/9530.

There doesn't appear to be anything more in the system at the time of writing.  I have also heard that many passengers elected to fly into Mackay Airport and be bussed to the Whitsundays.