Jake Nelson

From October, the Chilean carrier will axe the Sydney–Auckland fifth-freedom leg of its Sydney–Santiago service, leaving the non-stop Sydney–Santiago and Auckland–Santiago services in place. The frequency of Auckland–Santiago flights will also drop to four per week.

The inaugural flight VA21 left for Doha just after 3:45pm Perth time on Thursday aboard the wet-leased Qatar Airways 777-300ER A7-BEL. The launch follows Sydney and Brisbane earlier this month, with Melbourne flights to commence in December.

The new bases, to be built in Port Macquarie, Wagga Wagga and Moruya, will be added to NSW Ambulance’s existing aeromedical network of 12 helicopters and six bases. The funding announced this week is in addition to $126.6 million already invested by the Minns government.

The low-cost carrier is competing with Jetstar on the Adelaide-Bali route, operating four return services per week on 180-seat A320-200s and adding around 74,000 seats per year. The first flight, QZ420, arrived in Adelaide just before 6:20am on Thursday aboard PK-AZW.

The regional airport in South Australia received $16.2 million from the federal government and $13.8 million from the state government to strengthen its main runway, with Whyalla City Council also funding $2.4 million in works including runway lighting upgrades.

Network is looking to source up to 14 E190s, which QantasLink currently operates mainly in the east, with the first targeted for the end of 2026. QantasLink has 15 Fokker 100s in its fleet, with an average age of over 30 years.