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Local News
MAY 05, 2023
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Sky’s the limit
Cai rns
Face of Amateurs Carnival 2023 Page 5
Cairns Airport’s plans include a new eastern aviation precinct (bottom left) and preserving the mangroves to the east (right). Picture: Cairns Airport
Po rt Do u gl as/ Mo ssm an
Your Douglas News liftout inside Pages 17-20
Airport’s big plans to bring back tourism to pre-COVID levels l A EROGLEN | Nick Dalton CAIRNS Airport is preparing for a return to pre-COVID passenger levels, growing international and domestic routes and investing millions of dollars more in infrastructure. In a wide-ranging interview with Cairns Local News, air-
port chief executive officer Richard Barker revealed a number of initiatives were underway to boost the region’s tourism and other industries. He said international passenger numbers were currently at 60 per cent pre-COVID (2019). The latest figures show overall international terminal turnover in March of 33,967 (56,399 in March 2019), while
domestic figures were exceeding 2019 during peak periods (279,075 in March, 2023 – 298,077 in March 2019). Mr Barker said the main international routes had resumed in 2022 – Japan, Singapore, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. “With Air New Zealand we are expecting direct flights to become yearround, at the moment they are seasonal,” he said.
“The Japanese are slow to recover. “They are very conservative people and are still not travelling but they are expected to increase significantly due to the Virgin Australia and All Nippon Airways (ANA) services (from June 28).” Mr Barker said he could not emphasise more how important the Virgin direct services to Tokyo were. He said the Jap-
anese preferred reliable and full-service airlines, and ANA was a brand they trusted. They could go onto the ANA website and book a return flight all the way to Cairns. Mr Barker said a lot of Australians flew to Japan to ski and would take the Virgin direct flight from the Gold Coast to Cairns and then onto Tokyo. CONTINUED PAGE 7 AVIATION FOCUS PAGES 6-7
St rat fo rd
Football club’s special birthday Pages 35, 36
TO GO! S K E E W 3 24, 25, 26 MAY 2023 – MAREEBA RODEO GROUNDS www.fnqfielddays.org.au
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