Regional Express (Rex), Qantas and Virgin Australia were among the most punctual domestic airlines in December, government statistics show. Qantas had the highest percentage of on-time arrivals in December, with 88.6 per cent of its domestic flights reaching their destination within 15 minutes of schedule. The figures from the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE...
The first Australian pilots to undertake conversion training on the Pilatus PC-21 pilot training aircraft recently arrived in Switzerland, the RAAF has announced. These pilots will form the transition team responsible for the development of the new training curriculum and simulators that are being acquired under the AIR 5428 Pilot Training System project, the contract for which has been awarded...
Gold Coast Airport has received the green light to install an Instrument Landing System (ILS) as part of efforts to reduce the number of missed approaches, diversions and delays due to weather. The ILS, which assists pilots on equipped aircraft with a precise radio navigation aid, will be installed for flights landing from the north on Runway 14, which the airport has said previously is the dir...
The DC-10 Very Large Air Tanker (VLAT) firebomber Southern Belle has relocated from New South Wales to Avalon in Victoria. The DC-10, temporarily named Southern Belle for its deployment to Australia, had been based at RAAF Base Richmond, alongside an L-100-30 Hercules Large Air Tanker, after arriving in Australia in late September. “Now the risk is decreasing in the northern part of NS...
An Airbus A340 testbed is currently operating out of Darwin Airport in search of icing conditions in tropical thunderstorms as part of a flight test campaign to trial new technologies developed to detect icing conditions. A340-300 F-WWAI – in fact A340 MSN1, the original A340 flight test development aircraft, which first flew in October 1991 – arrived in Darwin on January 11 and is...
Virgin Australia has welcomed today’s announcement that Singapore Airlines will introduce direct international services from Canberra to Singapore and Wellington from September 2016. As part of the alliance between the two airlines, Virgin Australia will codeshare on Singapore Airlines flights between Canberra and Singapore, providing Virgin Australia customers with greater access to Asia...
Melbourne Airport has increased its share of all Australia-Asia passenger traffic from 15 per cent in 2000 to 25 per cent in 2013, while Sydney Airport’s share fell from 45 to 35 per cent over the same period, according to a research paper published in the University of Melbourne’s Journal of Transport Geography. ‘The fortunes of air transport gateways’ researc...
“On your next flight, why not pass the time as you learn a new skill whilst flying above the clouds?” Virgin Australia asks as it launches its latest inflight entertainment innovation: short hour-long modules on a variety of subjects delivered via its wireless streaming inflight entertainment system. “Are you interested in learning a new skill, but just don’t seem to fin...
Thanks largely to a revitalised and business-focused Virgin Australia, Perth Airport is now home to what is possibly the best domestic terminal in Australia; Virgin’s T1 Domestic Pier. Over 4,200 people were involved in the construction of T1 Domestic. The project took 1.8 million man-hours, resulting in a concourse that stretches 250 metres; longer than the height of WA’s largest s...
Here’s a stat that illustrates how Qantas International has turned the corner – for the month of October 2015, the number of passengers Qantas carried on its international operations to and from Australia grew by over five per cent, according to latest government data. The Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE)’s latest monthly ‘International...
Regional Express (Rex) has resumed services to Mornington Island in the Gulf of Carpentaria after CASA closed the runway there to aircraft larger than 5,700kg MTOW on December 16 “Recent runway repairs removed the runway length restriction yesterday and have enabled Rex to deploy its lighter Chieftain aircraft (operated by its subsidiary Air Link Airlines) as a shuttle service between Mor...
Singapore Airlines seems set to start Canberra’s first long-haul international services with a four times weekly service from its hub at Changi Airport, which will continue as a tag flight to the New Zealand capital Wellington. The SQ service, expected to be announced by Singapore Airlines chief executive Goh Choon Phong next week in Canberra, according to the Australian Financial Review, wi...
