Outback revival

Old airports come back to life as FIFO grows

A rare event is about to occur – the reopening of a regional airport that used to have an RPT service – the very much-upgraded Miles. Locals enviously noting F100s overflying to The Monument and Trepell, jet ports without towns, could win out of only the second rebirth of 38 ports previously served by TAA, BPA and Flightwest. Moranbah last served by a shared Titan was upgraded by BMA for $48 million and reopened, now getting 54 scheduled Brisbane services a week primarily by Dash 8-400s and ATR72s.

The extent of this can only be grasped by the numbers – 25 of these ports, towns and stations were linked to Brisbane and Adelaide by the world’s longest regional run – the “Four Day Western” involving an overnight in Adelaide and two nights in Birdsville. Conversely the shortest was the 13nm between Oakey and Toowoomba, taking five-and-a-half minutes by Twin Otter, now only flown by pilots doing an ILS to get in under the cloud to Toowoomba.