For the benefits of some of us from the oppositely oriented parts of the world, what are the mining contracts and what’s special about them for aircraft types? And why are they called FIFO for that matter?
Do they fly in to rough strips eg gravel airfields? I’m guessing no... in northern Canada some of the older 737s are still in use for operation to gravel runways. The newer ones and buses don’t come with gravel kit as an option is my understanding.
As Ozbiggles said. Also, nothing special about the aircraft types required but generally the contracts are very lucrative to the airlines. Because they are so lucrative the airlines will do just about whatever it takes to appease the customers which means operating when and where the customer asks.
The complication of that is that an airline (inherently used to high utlisiation on scheduled routes) invariably needs a larger number of airframes that will see lower overall utilisation (for some reason the shift changes at nearly every mine site seem to occur at the same time). As a result, largish fleets of older less efficent types have a niche - and what easier way to get hold of lucrative contracts and cheap older aircraft than to buy up the operators of them as Qantas and Virgin have done over the last several years.