Bush wins and loses

Three weeks after Qantas’s 33 per cent cuts to Barcaldine and Blackall (temporarily approved by Queensland government), they were rescinded after community backlash. Both airports have been recently upgraded to Dash 8-300 capacity, and are to be further upgraded to Q400 level by immediate grants, becoming the smallest towns to handle the world’s biggest regional turboprop. Ironically, Barcaldine had unsuccessfully sought an upgrade to Q400 capability, citing refusal of permission for a Q400 charter to land there, but local hard heads noting Longreach’s steady passenger growth thought it inevitable that Qantas would progressively introduce them to Longreach- of necessity bypassing them.

The first cancelled Blackall-Longreach service was replaced by a nonstop Q400 operating Brisbane-Longreach – vindicating locals. As soon as possible, each town will be back to three flights per week, one by a Q400, but Longreach will see two of its three nonstop flights route via these towns. Along with Winton, which will soon see Rex Saab 340s replace WestWing’s Beech 1900D feed to Longreach, these towns are the sole survivors of the seven old TAA and QAL DC3/F27 networks, which were dependent on Longreach numbers to underpin them. Blackall and Barcy previously rejected outright TAA’s Jetstream 31 experiment and also Qantas’s Impulse operated Beech 1900Ds, with Qantas now using Dash 8s linked with Longreach.