New flights a boost for tourism industry
Date: 27 March 2010


Activity at Cairns airport continues to ramp up, with another new flight set to arrive tomorrow.

Tourism Tropical North Queensland chief executive officer Rob Giason said the big news in the industry at the moment was aviation.

“Continental, All Nippon Airways, Pacific Blue, Jetstar and Qantas have seasonal supplementary flights, charters and new scheduled services flying into Cairns,” he said.

“Continental’s seasonal daily service from Guam to Cairns is operating until April 6, due to demand and adds almost 1400 inbound seats over the three weeks.

“The final two charters in the All Nippon Airways northern winter/spring series arrived over the last seven days, bringing the total to eight charters for the season.”

The Nagasaki and Fukuoka charters each brought 320 visitors for four days.

Mr Giason said the Tuesday and Saturday Pacific Blue flights from Auckland added a further 80 per cent more seats to Air New Zealand’s existing three times a week flights from the city.

“Our region has the access and connectivity now to grow the New Zealand market,” he said.

“At present, TTNQ has advertising and tactical campaigns in market through until June 30 supporting growth in the New Zealand market.”

Tomorrow, additional Jetstar services from Perth and Adelaide arrive.

The new schedule, using Airbus A321 aircraft, boosts the Perth to Cairns service from three to five flights a week and the Adelaide to Cairns service from four to six flights a week.

Qantas starts an additional daily service from Brisbane to Cairns on Monday.

Boeing 767s operate the route from Monday to Saturday and Boeing 737-300s on Sundays.

“The long-awaited Osaka connection starts on Thursday and on the same day, Jetstar will also introduce a second daily flight from Sydney and a second daily flight from Melbourne into Cairns,” Mr
Giason said.

Mr Giason said Air Niugini started a second service from Tokyo to Port Moresby on Wednesday.

The service will connect well to the Port Moresby to Cairns service, enabling growth for four and five-day tour programs in Cairns from the Japanese market. It arrives every Saturday. “The Jetstar, Qantas and Pacific Blue services add a total of more than 340,000 inbound seats (domestic and international) into Cairns annually, giving all of us the exciting task of filling the seats and growing the Japan, New Zealand and domestic markets,” Mr Giason said.

Cairns Post e-Paper