Two Virgin Australia senior executives will come to Narrabri next week for discussions with council, business and industry to explore the launch of a Virgin air service to Narrabri.
The mayor, Cr Conrad Bolton has been in discussions with Virgin Australia for several months seeking the airline’s involvement with Narrabri.
“We want Virgin to launch a service, and I believe they are keen” he said.
Virgin Australia Regional Manager NSW, Alexandra O’Connor and Business Development Leader, NSW, Andrew Best, will come to Narrabri on Tuesday. “We are very optimistic about the prospects” said the mayor.
Ms O’Connor and Mr Best will meet the council on Tuesday morning and will be given a powerpoint presentation on the district and its potential as part of the Virgin network.
“We invited them to come to Narrabri” said Cr Bolton.
“We have already had a good meeting and provided a lot of information, but Virgin Australia needs to gather as much as possible for preparation of a business case to support a Narrabri service” said Cr Bolton.
“They are enthusiastic about the prospects. I believe they can see that the businesses is here.
“They want to do it and we want them to do it, but they have to put a business case up which will be acceptable to their shareholders” said Cr Bolton.
The Virgin executives will meet business and industry, extractive industries, CSIRO, cotton industry business representatives and other potential regular air service users.
“We are pretty confident we have a business for them which will work” said Cr Bolton.
Cr Bolton expressed the hope that if a service was launched it would use a 50 seat Fokker 50
“Perhaps we can end up with a Sydney, Narrabri, Brisbane hook up.
“And that would be ideal.”
Virgin already operates regular charter flights to Narrabri.
“A key part of the negotiations will be working with the extractive industries and their contractors who use fly in fly out charters” added Cr Bolton.