More Seats to Western Queensland

Brisbane, 18 July 2006

QantasLink today announced the introduction of the newer, larger and quieter 50 seat Dash-8 Q300 aircraft on its Western Queensland routes.

Qantas Group General Manager Regional Airlines, Narendra Kumar, said the use of larger aircraft on services between Brisbane and Longreach, Barcaldine, Blackall, Roma and Charleville would add more than 280 seats per week and increase capacity by approximately 23 percent between 17 July and 30 November.

"Demand on our Western Queensland routes has increased in recent months and this indicates that our services are important to outback Queensland," Mr Kumar said.

"We are pleased to be able to provide this larger and more comfortable aircraft to our Western Queensland customers," he said.

Mr Kumar said that QantasLink had also increased capacity on a number of other regional Queensland routes this year with the introduction of five new 72-seat turboprop Bombardier Q400 aircraft.

"With the Q400 aircraft operating on seven of our Queensland routes, we are able to redirect our 50-seat aircraft from those routes to increase seat numbers to other QantasLink ports such as our Western Queensland routes.

"This $200 million investment in new Q400 aircraft is a reflection of the Qantas Group's ongoing commitment to regional Australia."

QantasLink offers more than 1850 flights each week, serving 48 capital city and regional destinations throughout Australia.

Issued by Qantas Corporate Communication (Q3449)
Email: qantasmedia@qantas.com.au