Jake Nelson

The mid-life aircraft, to be sourced from an unnamed international carrier, will enter service from the end of the 2024 calendar year, bringing QantasLink’s total Q400 fleet to 45. Each will have 78 seats, compared to 74 for QantasLink’s existing Q400s, 50 on its Q300s and 36 on its Q200s.

Functioning as a tag to the Taiwanese carrier’s existing Melbourne–Taipei service, the A350-900 flights, which will operate every day except Monday and Saturday, are expected to add more than 3,000 seats per week between Melbourne and Auckland in time for the summer holiday period.

The Flying Kangaroo, which last operated a seasonal service from Sydney to Sapporo in Hokkaido, Japan, between December 2019 and March 2020, said it had been assessing plans to restart the route this year, but did not proceed due to labour and other supply shortages at the destination.

BITRE data for May 2024 shows that just 1.1 per cent of Jetstar flights were cancelled last month, lower than Virgin Australia at 2.1 per cent and Qantas and QantasLink at 2.6 per cent, though Rex and regional carrier Hinterland Aviation had the best cancellation rates at 0.8 per cent.

The $480 million, seven-year deal will see four of Team Global Express’ 737-300 and 737-400 aircraft replaced with Texel’s 737-800BCFs under a wet-leasing arrangement, allowing more parcels to be picked up and delivered at regional destinations including Port Hedland, Norfolk Island and Karratha.

The service, announced in November, is the first to connect the two destinations and took off for its maiden flight on 20 June. It will operate on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays using A320-200s, adding more than 1,100 seats per week between Melbourne (Tullamarine) and Hervey Bay.