- Joined
- Jul 17, 2004
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- 3,979
So why not another.
Another pointless day trip just to go flying on the Alliance Airlines F100, for the last 12 months the F100 has been flying between Mackay and Brisbane doing a daily round trip to help with Qantas domestic capacity short fall; The route is not really big enough for a full Qantas 737-400 which seats 150 passengers but the route is too big for a Dash 8-300; which seats 50. A Dash 8-400 may have been enough but Qantas were short of them and I guess the Fokker 100 fitted the size requirement, Alliance Airlines were doing mining charters and they obviously had a spare plane.
BNE MKY QF2514 9:05AM - 10:40PM F100 VH-FKA(Previously N885US) SEAT 6A
The F100 does a daily morning rotation so it was possible to fly up and back in the morning but as I had never properly looked around in Mackay I thought it would be worth a quick visit to walk around the centre of town; I have driven past it many times on the way north, I had previously stopped overnight in Mackay when I was in Cairns 15 years ago.
I wasn't the only one doing this trip as I found another friend had booked the F100 a few weeks earlier than I did so I joined them. Their main reason to get a trip in on the F100 before it was pulled from Qantas service. The trip back was via Qantas on the Dash 8-300 via Rockhampton. When I went to book the return journey the flight via Rockhampton wasn't available for purchase so I ended up finding seats available for points redemption, not a great use of points but if it gets you the flights you want you take it.
On the same morning my mum was flying off to Mt Isa for a dog show so I got a lift to the airport. We arrived at 7:30am and went through security and upstairs to the lounge to get my mums frequent flyer added to her booking and for me to get the real boarding card.
The F100 uses the same gates as the Dash 8 aircraft with a bus out to the aircraft about 100 metres from the terminal; quite a few passengers were surprised with the plane as the previous Fokkers(F28-4000) had been fairly popular in Australia. The snack on today's flight was an Anzac biscuit with water; tea and coffee were also available.
There is no IFE on the F100 but the legroom is nice, and there were some nice views out the window. We commenced our descent into Mackay and I was shocked by the sudden drop in altitude; seems like the pilot had left the cruise altitude a bit late so was making up for it with a steep descent.
I ignored all rules to take a photo of the plane while it was refueling.
MKY-ROK-BNE QF2307 3:25PM - 5:50PM Dash 8-300 VH-SCE SEAT 9C
We had a pleasant walk around Mackay city; not a lot to report on the 4 hour visit, the weather was fine so it was a nice day for a walk around. We caught a taxi back to the airport and sat around for 90 minutes, boring. The flight was announced just after 3:00pm as flight QF2307 with service to Rockhampton, Gladstone and Brisbane. We were waiting around the desk and I asked the gate agent whether we were stopping in Gladstone as the scheduled showed we wouldn't be. The Saturday flight is the only flight that doesn't stop in Gladstone.
The flight stops for about 20 minutes in Rockhampton before continuing onto Brisbane. The flight is a continuation of a flight all the way from Cairns.
Service on the first flight segment to Rockhampton was a cake with water, tea and coffee. The Dash8-300 seats 50 passengers and regulations in Australia require 1 FA per 36 seats so on the short Dash 8 segments the cabin crew can usually get around to doing a quick service even on flights less than 1 hour, the flight to Rockhampton is only 45 minutes.
Continuating passengers are asked to stay onboard the aircraft as there is a quick turnaround, about half of the passengers got up and so did I. I wanted another look inside Rockhampton airport. Having a look at the check in area and through security was quiet easily, the only problem was the boarding pass reader didn't like my boarding pass. The gate agent in Rockhampton wasn't to pleased that I had got off the aircraft but there were still passengers lining up.
Service on the second flight was cheese and biscuits with some sort of gerkins which I didn't like. There was no tea or coffee on this flight but that was replaced with beer or wine free of charge. Beer and wine is only available free of charge on mainline flights Monday to Friday but for some reason Qantaslink offers the beer and wine for free on weekends.
The aircraft landed back into the dark of Brisbane, so after getting off the aircraft I ran to catch a departing train without having to collect baggage or take baggage with me.
That ends another day trip, I seem to be getting pretty good at these.
I have another almost day trip type report, its actually an overnight; but it would require a rewrite. :-|
