Opening up flight options

NORTH Queensland residents could soon be able to fly direct to one of Australia’s favourite holiday destinations.

Sunshine Coast Airport is in discussions with airlines to provide services to Townsville, Rockhampton and Mackay.

The Sunshine Coast want to fly direct to the north to service the region’s massive fly-in, flyout community it is expected to be up and running in the next few months, according to airport chief executive Andrew Brodie.

He said the region holds about 50,000 FIFO workers with the majority forced to travel south down the Bruce Highway in order to travel north.

“Hopefully in the next few months we can make another announcement on services to Townsville, Rockhampton and Mackay,” Mr Brodie said.

“We are working with three airlines to do that.

“We want to make sure we create a platform for people to go directly out of their backyard and go directly to work and home again in a safe manner.”

Queensland Airports Limited chief executive Chris Mills said there was potential for the flight path to be established.

“We are in regular discussions with our airline partners about rebuilding capacity at Townsville Airport by adding more flights to existing routes and exploring new ones,” Mr Mills said.

“Townsville Airport and tourism operators across North Queensland are feeling the effects of the Queensland border closure. Reopening Queensland to NSW will see passenger numbers recover further and make a big difference to businesses which have been struggling since the state border first closed on March 25.”

Townsville Airport passenger numbers remained 57 per cent below the year prior in September, with 62,729 passengers for the month, down from 147,558 in 2019.