Jake Nelson

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.

EY Australia will now have until 5 December to wrap up the second sale process, which was slated to end on 30 June. It is the second extension to the administration period, and comes as the administrator indicates potential buyers are waiting in the wings.

The Kiwi flag carrier will add 130,000 trans-Tasman and 25,000 Pacific seats between October 2025 and March 2026, representing additional flights as well as an increase in the use of wide-body jets. The airline will offer a total of 1.7 million seats between Australia and New Zealand this summer.

Australia’s second largest domestic airline group was listed as VGN at $2.90 per share, with the price quickly rising to $3.13 per share within the first 30 minutes. This represented a market capitalisation of around $2.3 billion, with 30.2 per cent of shares put up for sale.