Jake Nelson

The incident on Tuesday night saw flight SQ321 from London to Singapore, which was being operated by 9V-SWM (similar aircraft pictured), forced to make an emergency landing in Bangkok with 211 passengers and 18 crew on board, including 56 Australians. Dozens of injuries and one death were reported.

Official BITRE data for April 2024 showed Virgin climbing above the Flying Kangaroo in on-time departures, on-time arrivals, and cancellations, ending a 19-month run of lagging Qantas in some or all of these measures. Virgin also matched or beat the long-term average in all three areas.

The stricken low-cost carrier had “played a key role in connecting regional hubs across the domestic network”, the competition watchdog noted in its latest Domestic Airline Competition in Australia report, as it tried to stimulate demand on routes not served by other airlines.

In its latest Domestic Airline Competition in Australia report, the ACCC found 4.9 million domestic passengers flew with Qantas, Virgin, Jetstar, Rex and Bonza in March 2024, representing 98.8 per cent of March 2019 levels, with seat capacity also barely below pre-pandemic figures at 6.2 million.

Starting today (Tuesday), passengers on Qantas flights to Singapore are able to connect seamlessly to IndiGo services into Delhi and Mumbai. The move follows IndiGo being allowed to place its code on Qantas flights from Singapore to Australia last year.

ASLA, formerly Pionair, is based at Bankstown Airport and offers passenger and cargo charter and wet-leasing services across Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. The new freighter, VH-CYK, is its first B737-800BCF, with the airline primarily operating the BAe146.