Brisbane West Wellcamp Airport’s first passenger flight to China an attempt to build closer trade ties

IT WAS the first privately built airport in Australia. Now this Queensland wonder has reached a new milestone with its biggest flight yet.

Denis Wagner at Brisbane West Wellcamp Airport, on the outskirts of Toowoomba. Picture: Jack Tran

A REGIONAL airport, built on an old cow paddock by one of Queensland’s wealthiest families is about to reach another milestone, when it today announces its first passenger flight to China.

Brisbane West Wellcamp Airport, located on the outskirts of Toowoomba, is set to reveal the landmark journey to Shanghai in a bid to draw closer trade ties with the Asian powerhouse.

The Qantas charter flight, which is expected to take off in October this year, will be carrying an Australian delegation of business people and industry leaders as part of a push to develop stronger trade links with the manufacturing giant.

Toowoomba Surat Basin Enterprise CEO Dr Ben Lyons, who has helped spearhead the initiative, has been integral in leading the charge to attract Chinese business back to the Darling Downs region.

“We are in the heart of one of the world’s best food producing and value-adding regions and businesses and investors in China want to meet us,” Dr Lyons said.

“It’s not just about beef or infant formula, whilst China consumes across all commodity groups I would encourage people in the services sector be it health, education, construction, tourism, finance and investment to carefully look at this flight as an opportunity to investigate what those opportunities are.

“We can sit back here and wait for the Chinese opportunities to come, but I think there is much more to be said about being proactive about the China opportunity, and the Access China delegation is a big part of this.”

TBSE has based its own fulltime employee in Shanghai to develop links and opportunities for companies from Toowoomba and the Darling and Western Downs right through to the Burnett region.

Wellcamp Airport, which is owned and operated by the well-known Wagner family, has already branched into the domestic market since opening in 2014, with ­return routes available to Cairns and Melbourne through Airnorth, which uses a code sharing agreement with Qantas.

The China charter flight comes on the back of a Boeing 747-8 freighter departing from the airport in November last year carrying tonnes of mangoes, pecans, lettuce and beef to Hong Kong.

Wagner’s Global chairman John Wagner said any company considering doing business with China should be part of the delegation.

“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to network with like-minded people who deal regularly with China.

Key action plan points from The Courier-Mail’s recent #goqld campaign included developing Wellcamp as an export node, replicating the model at other regional airports and developing more direct air routes between Queensland and China.