Jake Nelson

Billed as a “vertiport in a box”, the setup is pitched at private building owners as an “affordable, modular, turn-key solution” that can offer utility while the aircraft are still waiting on certification.

The Brisbane-Santo flights, operated on a 144-seater Airbus A320 by Solomon Airlines on behalf of Air Vanuatu, will begin on 1 June and operate once per week on a Thursday.

From 1 May, nine routes served by Saab 340 turboprop aircraft in Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia and Queensland will see reduced services, with four more routes to have timings changed, and the Mildura-Adelaide service to be suspended altogether.

In total, Sydney notched up its strongest post-COVID performance yet with 3,166,000 domestic and international passengers – an 86.7 per cent recovery on March 2019.

The eight-year-old 737-800 (similar aircraft pictured), VH-XZL, departed Melbourne (Tullamarine) as flight QF769 to Perth at 9:52am on Sunday morning, 23 April, but returned to the airport about an hour into the journey after the crew reported the smell of fumes in the cockpit.

The report by the national centre for transport and mobility research iMOVE, working with the University of South Australia, predicts a $460 million net boost to the national economy from the emergency services sector alone, with a net productivity increase of 10 per cent, as well as between $1-8 billion if drones are used in early fire detection.