Flights to Gold Coast vanish

Airnorth scraps direct link

FLIGHTS from Townsville to the Gold Coast have been scrapped, severing the link between the two airports owned by the same company.

Airnorth secretly canned the flights at some point in the past few weeks, leaving some regular travellers between the two destinations up in arms.

Both the Gold Coast Airport and Townsville Airport are owned by Queensland Airports Limited (QAL).

Now, to get between Townsville and the Gold Coast, travellers need to stop at least once, with in many cases Qantas only offering two stops – one in Brisbane and another in Sydney.

The cheapest flight on Tuesday is with Virgin, but has a stopover in Sydney for 17 hours.

The shortest layover is almost five hours – stopping in Sydney.

The flight, which launched in 2019, was expected to run from August to October.

In 2020, the flight was cancelled again due to a lack of demand – however it did have a resurgence when Queenslanders began jetsetting around the state amid border closures.

Airnorth has not responded to the Townsville Bulletin’s inquiry about the flights.

Townsville is also awaiting the launch of Bonza, the budget airline that has promised to connect the city with the Sunshine Coast.

While Bonza was initially supposed to get in the air by June, it was delayed until September for the delivery of aircraft and regulatory approvals.

QAL did not wish to comment on Airnorth’s decision to stop the flight, but a spokesman said passenger numbers and flights continued to rebuild strongly.

“The 131,718 people who were welcomed by the Townsville Airport team in May is just 5.17 per cent less than the same month in 2019,” the spokesman said.

“Passenger numbers at Townsville Airport have been stepping up for several months and last week we welcomed back the Virgin Australia Townsville to Sydney and Melbourne services.

“We continue to liaise with our airline partners about new and existing capacity.”

Virgin services between Townsville, Sydney and Melbourne restarted on June 23, with each service occurring three times a week.