Gold Coast airport Booming.

[Brock Little]

Apparently JQ has a surplus of aircraft at the moment.

[Jarden S]

GOLD Coast Airport has been named the 2010 Major Airport of the Year by the Australian Airports Association following 12 months of solid growth in passenger numbers and services offered.

Chief operating officer Paul Donovan accepted the award at a ceremony in Adelaide and said the accolade showed the ongoing growth of the Gold Coast and its airport.

Mr Donovan said passenger numbers at the Gold Coast continued to grow.
''We have enjoyed considerable success in recent years in terms of continual passenger growth and during the 2009/2010 financial year Gold Coast Airport welcomed a record of just over five million passengers,'' he said.

''This is an achievement in itself considering the terminal was a construction site for the majority of the year, as we put the finishing touches to our $100 million terminal redevelopment.''

The services at the airport also continue to grow, with direct domestic flights to Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Adelaide, Newcastle, Cairns, Townsville and Mount Isa by Jetstar, Virgin Blue, Tiger Airways and Airnorth.

International routes have also increased with services to Auckland, Christchurch, Tokyo, Osaka and Kuala Lumpur provided by Jetstar, Pacific Blue, AirAsia X and Air New Zealand.

Mr Donovan thanked all airport staff for their hard work throughout the year

http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/...rism-news.html

[Jarden S]

A very valid comment Liam. They seem to have a spare Q400 up here in CNS on most days doing nothing could easily send it down to OOL to do some flights. Also do an OOL-CBR-OOL run in the downtime.

[Paul McFarlane]

GOLD Coast Airport has been named the 2010 Major Airport of the Year by the Australian Airports Association

Not to hijack the thread for a moment, but I'd thought I'd just mention that our airport (Mount Gambier) won the 2010 Rural Airport of the Year. From what I can remember it was a great night in Adelaide!

OK, as you were.

[Jarden S]

EXTRA Jetstar flights to the Gold Coast and Brisbane could bring another 100,000 passengers a year to Cairns airport.

The Gold Coast to Cairns service has gone from three flights a week to daily and a fourth daily Brisbane to Cairns service has been added. The new flights started yesterday.

The Gold Coast flights depart daily at 9.05am, arriving in Cairns at 11.35am.

The new Brisbane to Cairns flights leave at 10.35am daily and touchdown in Cairns at 12.55pm.

Tourism Tropical North Queensland chief executive officer Rob Giason said the expansion of services would bring more Japanese and Chinese tourists to Cairns.

"In addition to the domestic market opportunities, the Gold Coast service will provide greater access to the Cairns region for Japanese visitors arriving via the Gold Coast," he said.

"The additional services from Brisbane will assist Chinese visitors arriving direct from China."

Cairns Airport aviation business development general manager Rob Evans said the new flights were part of the long-term agreement between the airline and the airport.

"We welcome these increased services which demonstrate Jetstar’s confidence in our region to continue to attract visitors," he said.

"We expect the additional daily service to Brisbane will be well utilised by locals and visitors alike, while the introduction of a daily service to Coolangatta will further strengthen the link between Queensland’s two major tourist destinations of the Gold Coast and tropical North Queensland."

Jetstar corporate relations head Simon Westaway said the move to a daily A320 service on the Gold Coast route affirmed Jetstar’s ongoing support for the important Japanese market.

"It allows even greater support for group and individual travellers to package Queensland while growing a new market out of the Gold Coast for Cairns," he said.

One way airfares on both Brisbane and Gold Coast direct
flights start from $119.

Last year, Jetstar added 22 extra weekly services, adding more flights to Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. The airline also reintroduced direct Osaka flights and will start a direct Auckland service in April

http://www.cairns.com.au/article/201...ocal-news.html
That is a big boost on the CNS-OOL route more than 100% increase I hope they do well but it is a diificult market to increase services at the moment.

[Kain C]

The last paragraph of the article forgot to mention that JQ added a daily OOL-HBA from Dec 22 last year.

[Ryan K]

Originally Posted by Liam C

Just a thought - but is it possible that the Q400 would be a good choice for QF on SYD-OOL?

They already use them on BNE-CBR, which is a longer flight - but i'd say 3 daily Q400 returns ex syd would be far more profitable than 2 737 returns.

Or, could or the Q400 be used on a new SYD-LST service? Only DJ and JQ have daily services between these two cities at present.

[Brock Little]

Originally Posted by Ryan K

Or, could or the Q400 be used on a new SYD-LST service? Only DJ and JQ have daily services between these two cities at present.

Why not both, even if TT has a once daily service OOL-SYD-OOL? LST and OOL are both without QF
Even if JQ scales back on some frequency, the QF Link flights could go in their place. An early morning QFLink service, Afternoon, and night would do for OOL, as well as LST.