Big Future For Little Airport

Boasting record numbers of flights over the school holiday period and now shipping live seafood directly to the Sydney Markets, our regional airport is punching well above its weight and quickly becoming known as one of the busiest regional airports in Australia.

During the month of December 37,000 people passed through Whitsunday Coast Airport and, at its busiest, 10 flights a day were landing on the tarmac, an impressive 70 flights a week.

Chief Operating Officer Aviation and Tourism, Craig Turner, said that the load capacity of each flight has been around 75 per cent and that he expects this high demand to continue over the coming months.

“In February there are normally 20 flights arriving per week, but we are expecting 50 flights per week throughout the month,” he said.

“March and the lead into Easter indicates that the next six months will also be really strong which will be great for our region.”

In addition to the domestic travellers arriving at the airport, Mr Turner said that following a newspaper article published last year, he had several producers call him directly and ask about the live exports.

“The article written in Whitsunday Life Newspaper last year generated huge interest and I had several calls from interested producers wanting to understand more about it,” he said.

“We are hoping to send more produce from the Whitsundays soon – this means mud crabs caught here in the Whitsundays at 10am can be on a flight by 1pm and out to the Sydney Markets by 5pm –they are fresher for the customer and our producers can command a better price.”

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