Originally Posted by
RENURPP
Yes, they were.
National Jet Systems was established in 1989 and started operations on 1 July 1990. Initial flights commenced in 1991 on behalf of Australian Airlines, mainly to tourist destinations in northern Australia, operating a fleet of four British Aerospace 146-100 aircraft under Australian’s Airlink brand.
In the 1990s, Sunstate Airlines was acquired by Qantas and in 2001 Qantas rebranded Sunstate Airlines, Southern Australia Airlines and various other regional Australian airlines that it owned into one airline —QantasLink, which is what the airline still flies as today.
Southern Australian Airlines was merged into Easterns and ceased to exist. Sunstate and Easterns are still operating pretty much independently under the QLink brand, each has it's own EBA and bases and are played against each other at every EBA negotiation. Apart from Sunstate and Easterns which operate very similarly the other subsidiaries under the QLink brand have almost nothing in common apart from a management using each against the other to hold down conditions.