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Local News
JUNE 30, 2023
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Buyers go crazy for Krispy Kremes
Boxer turns into gym entrepreneur
Hawks AFLW star player is ‘coming home’
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Pages 31, 32
Chinese wish list
$2m Gold Lotto winner
l AEROGLEN
| Nick Dalton
| Nick Dalton
A MOSSMAN shopper has won a $2 million windfall in last weekend’s Saturday Gold Lotto draw. The mystery player held one of the 15 division one winning entries in Saturday Gold Lotto draw 4375, drawn Saturday, June 24, and took home $2m. So far in 2023, there have been six division one winning entries in the Far North Queensland region, who have collectively taken home more than $10.38 million in prize money. However, how the winner plans to enjoy their prize will forever remain a mystery as they’ve chosen to stay completely anonymous and celebrate in private. Their winning entry was bought at News Extra Mossman, Shop 5, 35 Front Street, Mossman. News Extra Mossman assistant manager Tanya Bown said it was a wonderful feeling knowing her team had helped make someone’s dreams come true. “It’s very exciting when you see your store’s name come up as one of the winning newsagencies in the weekend’s draw,” she said. “Our customers have been equally as excited as us when we share the winning news that we’ve sold a division one winning entry.”
Cairns Airport in talks about flights for future Lunar New Year festivities l MOSSMAN CHINESE New Year services from Asia are on the radar of Cairns Airport chief operating officer Garry Porter as he flew on the maiden Virgin Australia flight from the Far North to Tokyo on Wednesday. The inaugural route took off at 1.15pm on Wednesday with all 128 seats full, aiming to bring 30,000 Japanese and other visitors to and from the region this year and building to 100,000 next year. Mr Porter told Cairns Local News that part of his business trip would involve visiting places such as Korea, Taiwan and China where narrow aisle aircraft could directly reach from Cairns. Virgin will be using such planes as their new Boeing 737-8s on the Japan route in coming weeks. He said he would be talking to their old partners – airlines such as China Southern, China Eastern and Hainan – “hopefully for Chinese New Year services”. The flights were axed when COVID struck in early 2020. Mr Porter said the aim was also to have Singapore Airlines flying to Cairns daily next year but it was still too early for Cathay Pacific to return from Hong Kong, with crew and aircraft capacity an issue. “They are more challenging
J-pop dancers from Melbourne Miao-S performed at the launch of the first Virgin Australia flight from Cairns to Tokyo. Picture: Nick Dalton
than Singapore, not at 70 per cent, it’s a long road,” he said. Mr Porter said he would be armed with incentives including the Queensland Government and airports’ jointly funded aviation attraction fund of $200 million
a year and the Federal Government’s $15m to Tourism Tropical North Queensland for marketing. He said it was hoped the new daily Virgin flights and existing Jetstar services would total 240,000 Japanese visitors a year
from the ‘halcyon days’ of 2008, 2009 and 2010. Mr Porter said it was expected Virgin would deliver 100,000 passengers annually with the services to Haneda, Tokyo’s premium international airport.
He said Cairns would become Australia’s northern gateway for people to start and end their Australian adventure with Virgin’s good southern connections. CONTINUED PAGE 3
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