It arrived into Port Hedland in Western Australia and then Adelaide in South Australia where it is pictured above.
VH-YQT was then prepared for storage and was photographed on Saturday 25 April (below) all sealed up and in open storage at Adelaide Airport.
VH-YQT underwent planned maintenance at Singapore (Seletar) Airport during March and April and it is believed that while it was there, it was re-painted into the new Qantas / QantasLink colour scheme. VH-YQT is now the eighth of the fleet of Cobham Aviation-operated Boeing B717-200 regional jets to wear the new and updated Qantas livery and kangaroo logo, which was introduced to coincide with the introduction the Boeing B787 Dreamliner into service with the airline in 2017.
It also appears that the previously un-named VH-YQT has now been named 'Tasman National Park'.
VH-YQT is also the second of the 2-class QantasLink B717-200 aircraft to be re-painted having previously worn the 2007 'New Roo' style livery.
Of interest, VH-YQT has had an interesting history to the present day. The Boeing B717-2BL (c/n 55179-5129) was originally ordered new in 2004 by Midwest Airlines of Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the USA and entered the US Aircraft Register as N917ME in March 2004.
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| N917ME at Fort Lauderdale Airport, USA, in 2007 (Lewis Grant / https://www.flickr.com/) |
It operated with the airline until 2008 and was stored at Victorville soon after. In early 2009, the B717-200 was leased to Mexicana Click and seemed to operate for the Mexican airline again as N917ME.
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| N917ME at Mexico City in 2010 (Jorge Rocafort / https://www.jetphotos.com/) |
Mexicana Click ceased operations in 2010 and the aircraft was stored at Mexico City before subsequently being again stored at Victorville where it remained until August 2013 when it was prepared for lease to Qantas Airways.
N917ME was ferried to Jacksonville and painted into full Qantas / QantasLink colours before it was then subsequently ferried to Australia where it arrived into Adelaide in South Australia at the end of October in 2013.
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| N917ME at Adelaide Airport soon after arriving into Australia (Tony Haynes / https://www.flickr.com/) |
It was then registered VH-YQT in November 2013 with National Jet Systems (now Cobham Aviation Services) as the registered operator. VH-YQT entered service with QantasLink in December 2013 when it operated as QFA1545 from Brisbane to Canberra.
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| VH-YQT at Brisbane Airport in February (File photo) |
It remains one of seven B717-200s in the Qantas / QantasLink fleet to be in a 2-class configuration with 12 Business Class and 98 Economy Class seats, along with Q-Streaming - Qantas' wireless entertainment system.
Finally, it appears that fellow QantasLink (Cobham Aviation) Boeing B717-200 VH-NXQ has ferried overseas to Singapore's Seletar Airport for planned maintenance and I assume, re-painting.
Photos taken by Tony Haynes and Lloyd Fox ©
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