Australian Aviation

CEO Alan Milne’s comments come after the AFR reported the Government is considering buying out investment firm PAG’s debt from Rex to have more say over the outcome of the administration process, which has been extended to the end of June 2025.

Flight HO1669 touched down from Shanghai at 6:44am Tuesday aboard the 787-9 Dreamliner B-20EC, with four weekly flights planned, increasing to daily over the lunar new year period. Juneyao will also begin flights from Shanghai to Melbourne later this week.

The airline, one of China’s “Big Four”, is flying four times per week from Sydney and three times per week from Melbourne using A330 aircraft, both for ten-week seasons. Daxing is Beijing’s newer international airport, and the city’s second alongside Beijing Capital.

The aircraft, to be registered VH-L7A, formerly flew with Italian airline ITA and is now owned by Skytrans parent company Avia Solutions Group (ASG). It arrived in Brisbane at 7:40 on Monday morning, having flown from Lithuania via Ras Al Khaimah, Colombo, and Denpasar.

The test, conducted on a ground demonstrator aircraft dubbed “Clyde”, took place at Brisbane Airport and was the first of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere, as well as the first on a registered plane at an international airport.

Only 1.8 per cent of flights were cancelled in October 2024, around half the rate of October 2023, as detailed in Airservices’ latest Australian Aviation Network Overview report for November, though on-time performance still lags the rest of the world.