Jake Nelson

Australia’s largest international gateway saw 11 million passengers in total across the three months to December 2024, up five per cent on the same period in 2023 but only 94.4 per cent of the fourth quarter of 2019.

The company, which currently operates two amphibious Cessna Caravans and a de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver, will add a second Beaver under the ownership of hotelier Dr Jerry Schwartz, with a fifth seaplane expected by the end of the year.

The service, to be operated with 100-seat Embraer E190 aircraft, will fly three times per week return between the two destinations starting 14 April, and is estimated to add around 30,000 seats per year on the route.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has recovered black boxes from both the American Airlines Bombardier CRJ700 passenger jet and the US Army Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter involved in the incident, which killed all 67 people on board both aircraft.

The application, which had been filed by apparent creditor Wealth Creation, was on Wednesday dismissed with the consent of both parties, with no orders made as to costs. It comes after Australian Aviation exclusively reported on the application earlier this month.

Last month, 75.1 per cent of Virgin and VARA services arrived on time and 74.4 per cent departed on time, compared to 73.7 per cent and 73.1 per cent respectively for Qantas and QantasLink. Virgin also had the lowest cancellation rate of any airline at 0.6 per cent, according to BITRE data.