Jake Nelson

Only 1.8 per cent of flights were cancelled in October 2024, around half the rate of October 2023, as detailed in Airservices’ latest Australian Aviation Network Overview report for November, though on-time performance still lags the rest of the world.

The Gulf carrier will launch a daily service via Melbourne in December 2025 using its 777 fleet, bringing international connections out of Canberra back to two after Batik Air indefinitely suspended its Denpasar service in October.

The low-cost carrier is now flying from Sydney to Port Vila, Sunshine Coast to Auckland, and Brisbane to Bangkok, and has launched four new routes in the past fortnight, with Sunshine Coast to Cairns having commenced on 4 December.

The seasonal service, currently the only non-stop link from Adelaide to mainland China, will operate three times per week, and comes after the carrier’s return to Perth in November. The state government and Adelaide Airport say they are in discussions with China Southern to extend the service beyond the beginning of March.

The deal, as reported by The Australian Financial Review, would give the government a bigger say in the ultimate fate of the collapsed airline, and comes after it provided Rex with an $80 million funding injection to keep flying as administrator EY Australia works to make a sale.

Members of the Qantas Engineers’ Alliance (QEA) or “alliance unions”, comprising the AMWU, AWU and ETU, will down tools starting at 3:30am local time on Friday until 7:30am local time on Saturday across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide Airports.