Cloncurry Shire Council is continuing discussions with Alliance Airlines to replace Virgin Australia after it discontinued routes to Cloncurry earlier this year.
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Virgin Australia withdrew services from Cloncurry in September 2020, calling it an "underperforming route". Mayor Greg Campbell said the Cloncurry region was a strong investment for a regional airline like Alliance.
"Alliance have started their own flight from Brisbane to Moranbah, offering cheaper flights compared to other airlines. During discussions they have said they will start there and work out the bugs, and then look into other routes," Cr Campbell said.
"Cloncurry would be a strong port for them, between Ernest Henry, MMG and Eloise, workers are flying here regularly.
"Alliance were also operating the route for Virgin anyway, there is a real opportunity for them to create a good extra string to their business model. Knowing the strength in this area they could tailor it so it fits the mines and the community."
Cr Campbell said the community was not severely hit by Virgin withdrawing its services, however it stopped locals from having a choice of airline.
"Locals don't have the option to choose anymore. The impact was not overly great, however the Virgin Wednesday flight was tailored to the mining change overs, therefore the mines had to look at doing something," Cr Campbell said.
"Virgin's prices weren't super attractive, and they were only flying here three days a week; before they dropped one flight. Virgin had been hinting at reducing flights for 18 months beforehand but we kept encouraging them along and they dropped a lot of other routes before Cloncurry."
Currently Qantas is the only airline servicing Cloncurry which flies from Cloncurry to Townsville and Mount Isa-Cloncurry-Brisbane.
Cr Campbell said large corporate airlines were still charging high priced airfares and he would like to see something come out of the airline inquiry.
"The airline inquiry has fizzled out and I think it goes to show how much power the airlines have," he said.
"While Qantas is the safest airline in the world, and as a country we want them to succeed, they shouldn't be holding regional and remote Australia to ransom to keep operating all their routes.
"It would be nice to see something definitive come out of the inquiry.
"To me that is what our communities expect if we asked the questions, it should lead to something."
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