Jake Nelson

The low-cost carrier is set to name the new plane ‘Matilda’ after the Matildas football team, which reached the FIFA Women’s World Cup semi-final this year. It will join Bonza’s four other 737 MAX 8 aircraft, which are nicknamed ‘Bazza’, ‘Shazza’, ‘Sheila’ and ‘Malc’.

Starting on 8 December, the airline will fly three return services per week from Melbourne to Noumea, operating Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday services on its Airbus A320neo aircraft.

The carrier will continue to operate services from Perth to Albany, Esperance, and Carnarvon and Monkey Mia, while regional airline Skippers Aviation will retain its Perth–Laverton–Leonora and Perth–Wiluna–Meekatharra–Mount Magnet routes.

Speaking to Murray Jones on 4CA Cairns on Tuesday, Minister King mentioned the industry’s ongoing skills shortage, saying airlines had let staff go and many people had not returned to aviation, and added that this was also a problem at Airservices.

The partnership with Enterprise, which has flown Antarctic services in a fleet of DHC-6 Twin Otter and DC-3T Basler aircraft since 2001, follows a similar announcement earlier this month of an exclusive partnership with Helicopter Resources Pty Ltd.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH122 was en route to Kuala Lumpur when a passenger allegedly became belligerent and claimed to have explosives, causing the plane to return to Sydney at around 3:45pm. Police arrested him without incident, and all passengers and crew disembarked safely.