Qantas not considering introducing Longreach to Rockhampton flights

Announcements have been made for new routes from Gold Coast, Charleville, Roma and Brisbane. Find out what the airlines had to say about Rockhampton plans.

While announcements for new flights out of the Gold Coast, Charleville, Roma and Brisbane have been made over the past few weeks, Rockhampton has missed out again.

One of the most highly requested routes out of Rockhampton is the one to Longreach, known as the east-west route, but it doesn’t appear it will be announced any time soon.

Qantas responded to inquiries about the route and stated while it always reviewed the network for new opportunities, it was not “currently considering direct Rockhampton-Longreach flights”.

The airline operates more than 40 return Rockhampton flights each week across routes to Brisbane and Mackay.

Rockhampton flight capacity has steadily increased over the past 18 months and Qantas was offering more seats and flights than it did pre-Covid.

New regional transport service contracts were announced last month by Transport and Main Roads.

TMR responded to this publication’s requests as to why Rockhampton did not receive any and was told “a review of the network did not demonstrate a need for the introduction of regulated services in and out of Rockhampton at this time”.

TMR further advised it was aware of the “interest in a Rockhampton to Longreach regulated air route and will continue to regularly review the provision of regulated air routes across Queensland”.

Virgin Australia announced new services from the Gold Coast, with routes to Cairns, Hobart and Launceston.

Virgin wasn’t able to confirm if it was looking at new routes for Rockhampton however, advised from this week (December 12), in partnership with Alliance Airlines, it would operate up to four flights between Rockhampton and Brisbane.

New independent low cost carrier, Bonza, has announced plans to launch in the Australian domestic market in early 2022, with an initial fleet of two to three 737 MAX 8 aircraft.

Bonza CEO Tim Jordan

Founder and CEO Tim Jordan said the company had worked with Rockhampton Airport and was still finalising details but the discussions were “encouraging”.

He couldn’t reveal the destinations but said they were looking at both increasing flights and adding new flights.

“Think of the destinations that the community would like to go and that is what we are looking at,” he said.

“East-west flights however, aren’t a possibility as they would need to fill the 186-seat aircraft to make it viable.

“Our ability to go to smaller centres is limited. We want to the lowest possible cost to the customers and the way we do that is larger aircraft with more of the seats filled,” Mr Jordan said.

Route announcements are expected in early 2022.

“We are still working through commercial arrangements,” Mr Jordan said.

“We aren’t about doing the same as other guys, we are absolutely focused on leisure, visiting friends and relatives … growing that market.

“We are going to bring something different and will bring a lot of change across a lot of large regional centre across the country.”

Rockhampton region mayor Tony Williams said Rockhampton Airport was “actively investigating not only East-West routes, but also working with the airlines on other exciting destination possibilities.