AIRTIME to two of Australia's biggest cities will increase for Orange travellers from Sunday, with additional flights set to take off from the city's airport.
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Link Airways, formerly known as Fly Corporate, said it's reintroducing more services between Orange and Brisbane and Melbourne, saying the city will progressively start to benefit again.
"These additional direct flights each week will not only improve connectivity for business and tourism, but will also put Brisbane and Melbourne within easy reach for medical appointments, leisure and easy access to connecting domestic flights," the announcement said.
The Australian regional airline - which is based in Queensland - also said that adding more Orange flights to its scheduling was indicative of supporting rural connectivity, with restrictions from the pandemic easing.
"This announcement is further evidence of our commitment to re-grow air services to this vibrant region," the airline said.
"And in-line with demand over the coming months, we look forward to increasing our flight schedule further to pre-COVID levels."
For around 18 months, COVID-19 has largely impacted the flight world, with Link Airways part of the forced "skeleton services" across airlines.
"It got to point where we stopped altogether at the start of COVID and parked all of our planes for a couple of weeks," Link Airways' manager for network strategy and development, Jeff Boyd said.
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"The support package from the federal government helped us through for some of the flights afterwards, but the skeleton services meant mostly only two flights a week for essential travel, whereas pre-COVID we'd have 15 to 16 services operating on a weekly basis."
Gradually expanding since, the airline's latest announcement in increasing its flight frequency is its "biggest acceleration" since the birth of the pandemic.
Skeleton services meant mostly only two flights a week for essential travel, whereas pre-COVID we'd have 15 to 16 services operating on a weekly basis.
- Link Airways' manager for network strategy and development, Jeff Boyd
"We've obviously had to shrink back times and services, but we're now seeing people gradually heading back to work and it's hard for a lot of travelling employees to return to their work roles when there's not enough services to do that," Mr Boyd said.
"We've been slowly growing since, but what we're doing now is moving toward creating that business-friendly schedule again - which is around three-quarters of the traditional, pre-COVID schedule - and the biggest acceleration for close to two years."
While some flights will still operate as combined flights - for example, picking up Dubbo and Orange residents in the same service - these 'looping' operations will now be halved, as opposed to all services forced to combine as such for the past 18 months.
"We'll certainly have an increase in the frequency of direct services now, particular with flights between Orange and Brisbane," Mr Boyd added.
Link Airways will continue operating from Orange's airport with the city's other two airlines, Regional Express and Qantas, and will launch additional services effective from Sunday, February 27. Services will run from Sunday to Friday inclusive, with one-way fares at a cost of $229. To find out more information, head to www.linkairways.com
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