Mildura Airport to offer first flights directly to and from Queensland

For the first time in Mildura’s history, those living in northern Victoria could be able to fly to Queensland. See when the flight is expected to take off.

For the first time Mildura people could be able to fly directly to the Sunshine Coast.

As part of the largest announcement in aviation history, Bonza, an independent airline, announced it would offer five new flights from Mildura via two new routes.

From mid-2022, pending regulatory approval, Bonza will operate three times per week from Mildura to Melbourne Airport and twice to the Sunshine Coast.

Mildura Airport chairman Peter O‘Donnell said they were excited about what it would mean for the northern part of the state.

“We are very excited to be partnering with Bonza to bring more destinations and travel options to our community. A direct flight to Queensland has always been on our radar,” he said.

“The data we have says that Mildura wants to and does connect to Queensland a lot and having that direct connection will be super successful.”

The airport has seen a decline in passenger numbers between January and February but Mr O’Donnell said he was hopeful this announcement would encourage passengers to fly again.

“Up until December we were starting to see some really good recovery, with Omicron kicking in January and February having dropped off a little bit, we are just starting to see some signs of recovery again. We just need to get to the other side of this latest variant,” he said.

“It has been a bit quiet over the past few years but we see that it will recover to at least pre-Covid levels.”

Bonza CEO, Tim Jordan, said the airline was focused on “moving on” from Covid and they were confident domestic travel would recover quickly; just as it had in other parts of the world.

“There is all this pent up desire to travel,” he said.

Bonza airlines

Bonza airline

A one hour flight is predicted to cost about $50 and a two hour flight between $75 to $100.

“There hasn’t been too many low coast travel options for large regional centres across Australia and that isn’t right,” Mr Jordan said.

“That is an anomaly when compared to the rest of the world.”

Mr Jordan said the Mildura airport and Mildura Rural City Council have been proactive in getting the new routes for the region.

“The reason we are flying to these destinations is because those airports, those local councils, those regions have proactively come to us and said we want you to fly here,” he said.

Mr O’Donnell says the flights help open Mildura to the rest of Australia.

“For the region it is just fantastic. The airport has had an extremely difficult two years where we have maintained our standards and services and compliance with very limited income streams so to get this response we are really excited about what it is going to look like for Mildura moving forward,” he said.

Australians are encouraged to download the app “Fly Bonza” on the Apple App Store or Google Play now and keep an eye out for updates as new functions are added.

Flights are due to go on sale within the next eight weeks, pending regulatory approval.