Just to set some records straight (F-Bear & J...Dash)
The small band of crew who started QRA (nee Skytrans) back in late 2005/6 started with 1 Dash and purchased 8 from Easterns for 5 mill (at the time it had merged with Southerns). Mostly the "WZ series from Melb base but also TQ series from Sydney... all high time a/c. All were taken up through Moresby heavy maintenance, great jobs down inside and out, "VH'd" and then returned throughout Australia and the Pacific on various wet & dry leases... as QRA had both a Domestic and International AOCs then. The International one was lucrative! The sideshow began when Corporate Air Services bought Inland Pacific (TL); also the well known C404 Cairns operation -Skytrans; bought in a new Chief Pilot (that wasn't a scratch on the previous) and then also shunted the pioneering crew as well as dropping the International AOC. Many "show cause" events then followed and the rest is history. They have survived despite the stupidity.
So yes, they maybe providing a better regional service to remote parts of QLD and that is great stuff. Sad to say though, the company is half the size it could have been and not even half as successful, compared to if they had retained and followed the advice of experienced crew all along, right back from it's pioneering days.
Pulling back it's operations to QLD only is coming back to bite, it seems.