Eastern Australia Airlines

Eastern Australia Airlines Pty Ltd is an airline based on the grounds of Sydney Airport in Mascot, New South Wales, Australia.[1] It is a regional domestic airline serving sixteen destinations within Australia under the QantasLink banner. Its main base is Sydney Airport, with a hub at Melbourne Airport.[2]

Eastern Australia Airlines
IATA ICAO Callsign
QF EAQ Q-LINK
Founded1949
Operating basesAdelaide Airport, Melbourne Airport, Sydney Airport
Frequent-flyer programQantas Frequent Flyer
Fleet size19
Destinations25
Parent companyQantas
HeadquartersMascot, New South Wales, Australia

History

The airline was established and started operations in 1949. It began in Tamworth as a one-aircraft, one-pilot operation, known as Tamworth Air Taxi Service (soon after to be shortened to Tamair), serving farming communities in New South Wales and Queensland. After 36 years of expansion and amalgamation with several smaller commuter operators, the current name was adopted in 1986. Australian Airlines purchased 26% of Eastern Australian Airlines from East-West Airlines in 1988, and the airline became a wholly owned subsidiary in 1991. Qantas purchased Australian Airlines in 1992.

In 2002, Qantas merged its Mildura-based subsidiary Southern Australia Airlines with Eastern, the resulting operation using the Eastern name.

In August 2008 it was announced that Eastern Australia would shortly commence operating 72-seat Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 aircraft on services to regional centres in New South Wales, supplementing services with smaller 50-seat Dash 8s and allowing the removal of 36-seat Dash 8s from service on some routes altogether with the retirement of all 100 series Dash 8s.[3]

In June 2015, Qantas Group chief executive Alan Joyce announced that Eastern Australia would operate regional services in New Zealand, using Jetstar-branded Bombardier Dash 8 turboprops.[4]

In September 2019, Jetstar CEO Garath Evans announced a proposal to withdraw from regional flying in New Zealand. This was followed up by a confirmation in October 2019. Jetstar cited soft demand, higher fuel costs and a loss making operation as reasons for the withdrawal. Following the withdrawal, the five Jetstar-branded Bombardier Dash 8 aircraft were transferred back to Australia.[5][6]

Destinations
An Eastern Australia DHC-8-201 at rest at the Sydney main base. The pink ribbon forward of the entry door is to advertise QantasLink's support of breast cancer research, while aft of the door is the Oneworld logo.

Eastern Australia Airlines operates services to the following domestic scheduled destinations. Between December 2015 and September 2019 Eastern Australian Airlines operated regional domestic services within New Zealand under the Jetstar brand.[7]

Australia
From Brisbane
From Sydney
From Melbourne
From Adelaide

Fleet
An Eastern Australia Airlines Bombardier Q300 at Wagga Wagga Airport in QantasLink colors
Eastern Australia Airlines Bombardier Q300 at Wellington Airport in Jetstar Airways colors

As of August 2019 the Eastern Australia Airlines fleet consists of the following aircraft:[8]

Eastern Australia Airlines fleet
Aircraft Total Notes
Bombardier DHC-8-200 3
Bombardier Q300 16
gollark: ++list_deleted
gollark: Also, it logs them to the Potatodatabase™™.
gollark: It's also not that, because it says things twice, and also "Deleting".
gollark: If it was `cat`, it would... try and read from the file `today`, which doesn't exist.
gollark: It's not `cat`.

References
  1. "World Airline Directory." Flight International. 23–29 March 2004. 66.
  2. "Directory: World Airlines". Flight International. 3 April 2007. p. 75.
  3. "QantasLink Announces New Q400 Schedule for NSW"; Qantas Media Release. Retrieved 6 September 2008.
  4. Bradley, Grant (18 June 2015). "Regional shake-up: Jetstar to break Air New Zealand's domestic stranglehold". The New Zealand Herald. NZME. Retrieved 19 June 2015.
  5. "Jetstar proposes withdrawal from regional flying in New Zealand"; Jetstar Media Release. Retrieved 25 September 2019.
  6. "Jetstar confirms withdrawal from five regional domestic routes in New Zealand"; Jetstar Media Release. Retrieved 16 October 2019.
  7. Qantas online schedule. Accessed 16 December 2009.
  8. "Global Airline Guide 2019 (Part One)". Airliner World: 4. October 2019.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.