Skystar, Darwin has a population of just 120,000 actually, which further adds weight to your argument i guess. As a Darwin resident I see your point, I don't think it will happen either. NT govt. seems to have forgotten the rest of the country sees us as an isolated backwater, and they're trying to run this place like it were Sydney.
It would be nice if Tiger could introduce some daylight services to the East Coast from Darwin however. I regularly have to pax to Sydney, sometimes at short notice only to find the only seat available is a full fare red eye on QF, or an almost as expensive seat on
VB (I refuse to fly Jetstar, but that is for another thread). I remember after the collapse of Ansett paying close to $1000 for a DRW-SYD-DRW flight on a 21 advance and the only flight available was routed DRW-SIN-SYD on the leg down! Improved when Virgin came in, at first however with the 734s with no IFE (by which i mean audio like on the -800s) on a 4 hour flight, it was cheaper, but you had to be prepared to leave at 1am, and change planes in Brissie... not much has changed, just not as cheap anymore. Bring on Tiger I say!