Greater avaition access see's more visitors in Cairns Image Source:cliftonsands.com

Since the success of Tropical North Queensland’s charter which brought 12 special direct flights from China to Cairns for Chinese New Year many airlines have followed suit.

Airlines such as China Southern, China Eastern and Cathay Pacific all doubled their capacity of flights to Cairns over the 2011 Chinese New Year charter program.

On the domestic front, from the 01 April Jetstar will be increasing its Melbourne to Cairns schedule by four flights weekly bringing the total to 25 services from Melbourne with the Airline.

Additionally, Virgin Australia has announced it will operate additional flights on its key route Brisbane to Cairns. The extra service commences 06 February and will operate six days a week boosting the Virgin schedule to 40 services from Brisbane each week.

Tourism Tropical North Queensland Chief Executive Officer Rob Giason said the additional flights will bring total weekly domestic and international seat capacity into Cairns to over 40,000.

“The additional domestic services do more than provide greater aviation capacity and more visitors into the region, they create the environment for more competitive airfares” Mr Giason said.