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.
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.
The Flying Kangaroo now says the disruption later caused by the Delta strain of COVID-19 would have meant it would have had no choice but to let 1,700 ground handlers go anyway after they were made redundant earlier in the pandemic.