Australians are fairly well served by Qantas, Virgin Australia and Jetstar, the country’s three largest airlines. Between these airlines, as well as Qantas’ regional subsidiary QantasLink and Virgin Australia Regional Airlines, you can fly to many major cities and towns across Australia.
But Australia is a huge country, and the major airlines don’t fly everywhere. If you want to fly between two regional destinations, there’s also a good chance you’ll have to connect via a capital city if using Qantas, Virgin or Jetstar. This is where Australia’s many smaller, independent regional airlines come in.
Australia has many smaller, independent regional airlines
By our count, there are around 15 smaller airlines connecting Australia’s regional and remote communities with regularly scheduled passenger service. You probably haven’t even heard of some of these companies, but they play a vital role in the communities that they serve.
A small handful of these airlines also operate some services on behalf of Qantas or Virgin Australia. For example, Link Airways operates the Sydney-Canberra route for Virgin Australia. Skytrans will soon operate some flights for QantasLink. Alliance Airlines operates selected flights for both QantasLink and Virgin.
Link Airways and FlyPelican also have partnerships with Velocity Frequent Flyer, allowing their passengers to earn Velocity points. Rex also has its own Rex Flyer loyalty program. But most of Australia’s regional airlines are not affiliated with any loyalty programs.
Scheduled services on some of the very small regional players do not even appear on Google Flights. So you would need to go directly to the airline’s website or a travel agent to check their schedules and make a booking.
Some of these airlines operate on routes that are regulated by state governments. Under this arrangement, the WA, NSW and Queensland governments provide the airline with a guaranteed monopoly in certain markets with too few passengers to sustain multiple airlines.
Here’s an overview of Australia’s regional carriers operating scheduled passenger flights, aside from QantasLink and Virgin Australia Regional Airlines…
Regional Express (Rex)
Rex, short for Regional Express, is Australia’s largest independent regional airline. It was founded in 2002 as an amalgamation of Hazelton and Kendell Airlines, two regional airlines that had been owned by Ansett prior to that airline’s collapse the year before. (Fun fact: Rex’s “ZL” IATA code comes from Hazelton Airlines.)
Rex is currently the world’s largest operator of Saab 340 turboprops, which is the only aircraft it currently has in regular commercial passenger service. According to Rex’s website, the airline has 61 Saab 340s in its fleet. However, only around half of these are currently in service. Some of them are grounded due to a lack of spare parts, and the airline has also complained of pilot shortages.
From 2021 until 2024, Rex also flew Boeing 737-800s on routes between major cities, but the failed 737 experiment ended up putting the company in voluntary administration.
At the time of writing, Rex is still in administration. However, it continues to operate its core network of regional routes to Australian country towns with the backing of the federal government. The airline is currently up for sale, but the government has declared itself a buyer of last resort in case a private buyer can’t be found.
Rex is Australia’s only regional airline to operate airport lounges.
Alliance Airlines
Alliance Airlines operates lots of FIFO charters to mining sites across Australia, as well as flights on behalf of Virgin Australia Regional Airlines and QantasLink. For example, all of QantasLink’s Embraer E190 services are operated by Alliance Airlines.
Other than the E190, Alliance flies Fokker 70 and Fokker 100 jets.
Alliance does operate a few regularly scheduled routes that the general public can book tickets on directly on the Alliance Airlines website. These include:
- Adelaide-Olympic Dam
- Perth-Kalgoorlie
- Brisbane-Moranbah
- Brisbane-Weipa
- Cairns-Weipa
- Cairns-Groote Eylandt
Airnorth
Based in Darwin, Airnorth flies a fleet of Embraer jets and turboprops predominantly on routes to, from and within the Northern Territory. Many of these routes, such as Darwin-Katherine and Perth-Alice Springs, are not served by other airlines.
It has one international service from Darwin to Dili in Timor Leste, which it operates alongside QantasLink.
Airnorth ended its partnership with Qantas Frequent Flyer in 2020.
Skytrans
Based in Cairns, Skytrans primarily operates Dash 8-100 services out of Cairns, Townsville and Horn Island. Most of its destinations are in the Cape York Peninsula and Torres Strait.
Until now, Skytrans has been a relatively niche operator in Far North Queensland with a fairly old fleet of Dash 8s. (The oldest one is over 40 years old, and was the fourth Dash 8 ever built.) But the company is now growing.
It was bought last year by Avia Solutions Group, which specialises in leasing aircraft to other airlines. Skytrans has just acquired its first jet, and in the future plans to operate Airbus A319s as well as A321F freighters on behalf of other airlines.
Skytrans has also bought QantasLink’s Dash 8-200 planes and will use them to operate the Sydney-Lord Howe Island route from next year. Qantas will codeshare on those services.
Link Airways
Based in Brisbane but with its company headquarters in Canberra, Link Airways (formerly Fly Corporate) operates turboprop planes on various regional routes in Queensland and south-eastern Australia. For example, it flies to both Melbourne and Brisbane from Wollongong, Orange and Dubbo. It also flies from Canberra to Newcastle, Hobart and Coffs Harbour.
Link Airways codeshares with Virgin Australia and offers some Velocity Frequent Flyer benefits. It also operates the Sydney-Canberra route on behalf of Virgin Australia.
FlyPelican
FlyPelican’s niche is flying 19-passenger BAe Jetstream 32 planes on regional routes, mainly from its base at Newcastle Airport.
FlyPelican has a partnership with Velocity Frequent Flyer that allows customers to earn Velocity points and access Virgin Australia Lounges on certain ticket types, but it’s not as comprehensive as the Link Airways agreement.
Nexus Airlines
Launched in 2023 by the same parent company that owns Aviair, Nexus Airlines flies Dash 8 Q400 planes around regional Western Australia, as well as from Kununurra to Darwin. Its bases are in Broome and Geraldton.
Instead of a traditional frequent flyer program, Nexus runs a program called NexusGO that provides sponsorship opportunities in the towns that the airline flies to.
Other Australian regional airlines
There is also a handful of very small airlines that operate a mix of charter, freight and scheduled passenger flights in specific markets:
- Aviair is headquartered in Kununurra and operates various scheduled flights in the Kimberley region, including some WA government contract routes, mainly using Cessna 208 Caravan aircraft.
- Skippers Aviation mainly operates FIFO mining charters from its base in Perth, but also has the WA government contract to operate the “Northern Goldfields” routes to towns including Laverton and Wiluna.
- Sharp Airlines connects Flinders Island and King Island with Melbourne and Tasmania using Fairchild Metroliners, in addition to charter operations.
- King Island Airlines operates flights between Melbourne’s Moorabbin Airport and King Island using Piper PA-31-350 Chieftain planes.
- Air Link currently flies propeller planes from Dubbo to Bourke, Lightning Ridge and Walgett in northwest NSW.
- Eastern Air Services flies small aircraft from Newcastle, Port Macquarie and Gold Coast to Lord Howe Island.
- Fly Tiwi connects communities on the Tiwi, South Goulburn and Croker Islands, as well as Arnhem Land, to its main base in Darwin.
- Hinterland Aviation predominantly flies Cessna 208 Caravan planes from Cairns to towns in Cape York, as well as from Horn Island to other islands in the Torres Strait.
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