Jake Nelson

The plane, nicknamed “Monkey Mia”, is the first of eight MAX 8 aircraft Virgin has on order from Boeing. It is earmarked for use on the airline’s Cairns-Tokyo (Haneda) route, due to launch on Wednesday.

The Flying Kangaroo says its domestic capacity has reached pre-pandemic levels, while international capacity is “climbing towards” that mark as the group predicts more than four million passengers on Qantas and Jetstar services over the winter holidays.

The flight paths, which will be subject to a formal planning and consultation period later this year, have been designed for WSI’s single initial runway. They include reciprocal runway operations (RRO), where planes arrive and depart from the same direction, to minimise noise at night when traffic permits.

The airport expects domestic figures to reach similar levels to last year – around 84 per cent of pre-COVID levels – and international passengers to climb 53 per cent over the 2022 winter holidays, driven in no small part by the New Zealand market.

The low-cost carrier will fly three times per week between Cairns and Newcastle using Airbus A320 aircraft, translating to around 4,400 seats on the route per month until 28 October. The first flight, JQ894, touched down in Newcastle at 3:08pm on Saturday on board VH-VQF.

The first flight, NZ169, landed at Sunshine Coast Airport at 11am on Sunday on board the Airbus A320neo ZK-NHE. Air New Zealand will operate flights three times per week between Auckland and the Sunshine Coast until 15 October, with an estimated 16,000 seats available over the season.