Eastern Australia Airlines

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Eastern Australia Airlines Pty Ltd is an airline based on the grounds of Sydney Airport in Mascot, City of Botany Bay, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.^[2] It is a regional domestic airline serving 16 destinations under the QantasLink banner. Its main base is Sydney Airport, with a hub at Melbourne Airport^[3].

[edit] History

The airline was established and started operations in 1949. It began in Tamworth as a one aircraft, one pilot operation, known as Tamworth Air Taxi Service (soon after to be shortened to Tamair), serving farming communities in New South Wales and Queensland. After 36 years of expansion and amalgamation with several smaller commuter operators, the current name was adopted in 1987. Australian Airlines purchased 26% of Eastern Australian Airlines from East-West Airlines in 1988, and the airline became a wholly owned subsidiary in 1991. Qantas purchased Australian Airlines in 1992.

In 2002, Qantas merged its Mildura-based subsidiary Southern Australia Airlines with Eastern, the resulting operation using the Eastern name.

In August 2008 it was announced that Eastern Australia would shortly commence operating 72-seat Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 aircraft on services to regional centres in New South Wales, supplementing services with smaller 50-seat Dash 8s and allowing the removal of 36-seat Dash 8s from service on some routes altogether with the retirement of all 100 series Dash 8s.^[4]

[edit] Destinations

An Eastern Australia DHC-8-201 at rest at the Sydney main base. The pink ribbon forward of the entry door is to advertise QantasLink's support of breast cancer research, while aft of the door is the Oneworld logo

Eastern Australia Airlines operates services to the following domestic scheduled destinations:^[5]

From Sydney

Albury, New South Wales
Armidale, New South Wales
Canberra
Coffs Harbour, New South Wales
Dubbo, New South Wales
Lord Howe Island
Moree, New South Wales
Narrabri, New South Wales
Port Macquarie, New South Wales
Tamworth, New South Wales
Wagga Wagga, New South Wales

From Melbourne

Adelaide, South Australia (Begins February 15)
Devonport, Tasmania
Launceston, Tasmania
Mildura, Victoria

From Adelaide

Port Lincoln, South Australia (Begins February 15)
Melbourne, Victoria (Begins February 15)

[edit] Fleet

An Eastern Australia DHC-8-315 at Wagga Wagga Airport

As of February 2009 the Eastern Australia Airlines fleet consists of the following aircraft:^[1]

• 5 Bombardier Dash 8 200
• 13 Bombardier Dash 8 Q300

[edit] References

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