Jake Nelson

Gissing, who is stepping down in November, has served as QantasLink CEO since April 2012, as well as Qantas Group Executive Associated Airlines & Services since 2015. He was previously a founding member of Jetstar’s executive team.

VH-8IA, nicknamed ‘Monkey Mia’, is expected to land in Brisbane this week after numerous delays, and will fly between Cairns and Tokyo (Haneda) after obtaining regulatory approval. The airline has a further seven MAX 8 and 25 MAX 10 aircraft on order.

The reshuffle will include the creation of a chief people officer role to handle both human resources and industrial relations, which are currently separate portfolios. The Flying Kangaroo is undertaking a search for the executive who will fill the position.

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.