The biggest passenger jet ever to land at Narrabri airport touched down on Monday in the first of what is expected to be regular weekly flights.
The 70 seat Alliance airlines Fokker 70 flew in from Brisbane carrying coal mine workers.
Alliance Airlines is a dedicated ‘fly in, fly out’ (FIFO) operation.
Narrabri may not have a regular passenger service at the moment, but the airport is busy, with several hundred passengers passing through every week coming or going from their jobs in the mines.
Ordinary travellers who once boarded a passenger aircraft at Narrabri are nowadays making the journey to Moree, or more often Tamworth, to catch a Qantas flight.
The airport was previously handling 20 regular flights each week when Vincent Aviation, now in receivership, was operating.
“Regardless of whether we have a regular service we are still a certified airport” said Narrabri Shire Council airport manager Scott McFarland.
“We are a busy airport. It is obviously a big blow to lose our regular passenger service, there is still plenty of other activity here.”
Fly in-fly out is well and truly active at the airport.
And the charter aircraft arriving at Narrabri pay to land.
“Aircraft are charged according to the council’s landing fees” said Scott.
A new scale of fees has been adopted this week.
“We capture known regular charter operators through the Avdata system, like Virgin, Alliance, Skytrans, Austrek Aviation and Airspeed, all the ones we know come in regularly.
“Avdata works by recording the pilots’ calls as they come in to land, that information is transcribed back at the Avdata office and the aircraft is charged according to their maximum takeoff weight.
“For example, Vincent Aviation’s Saab 34 was 14 tonnes, and it was charged at a tonne rate.
“Two charges apply, one for landing fees, that is one fee per aircraft, and there is also a fee per head.
“All aircraft are charged landing fees, but the passenger tax is a bit more difficult to manage because we rely on the operator to report the number of passengers on board.”
The regular weekly charter flights are mostly larger aircraft operating with a special dispensation to land at Narrabri.
“Virgin operates a 70 seater, Alliance now bring in a Fokker 70 seater, a larger aircraft than its previous 50 seater, and Skytrans fly in a 50 seat Dash 8 300, the same aircraft type as goes in and out of Moree.
“We have a number of smaller operations, three or four, King Airs or Beech 350 types, ten seaters, flying in as well.
According to the Code 3 level of the airstrip, the aircraft types landing nowadays are probably at the maximum size Narrabri airport will see, even after the airstrip upgrade.
If the airport became busier it would most likely be in the frequency of flights, rather than bigger aircraft landing .
And any aircraft over 20 tonnes landing at Narrabri on a regular service would trigger the need for security screening, which would take airport charges and costs to passengers up a notch.