When I was flying into KA, most of the delays were caused by choppers being late,and there was never any significant amount of delays in any case.
As usual, a few people whinge about something and it gets turned into " the whole of Karratha is unhappy " by the media.
They seem to be a fickle mob up north, I remember well when Airlink pulled out of PD due to the pi$$ poor support from the locals and they whinged about that ! then they whinged when Ansett went bottoms up, about Airlink A/C which were identical to what they had been flying in with Ansett !