Interesting report today in the
Illawarra Mercury.
Of note:
"Since October 30, 76 return flights ... carrying about 2800 passengers to and from Brisbane or Melbourne." At a rough calculation, that's a load factor of 50% - not bad.
Also of note:
"Of the 76 flights in the first month, five of them saw disruptions for passengers.Three of the disruptions were weather-related, while two were the result of delays that meant the planes would have arrived after last light.
Prior to recent approval from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA),the aircraft were unable to land at Albion Park in the dark.
Mr Bredereck said a number of measures had been put in place at the airport to assist pilots in times of bad weather, including new instrument approaches. The improved approaches align the aircraft with the runway they are landing on, preventing the need for them to circle beforehand, and will allow for a lower minimal descent altitude in times of low cloud or poor visibility. “All our pilots have now flown the instrument approaches into Wollongong in the flight simulator,” he said. “We’ve dialled the weather up in the simulator … they’re now well practised on that.” The new approaches are yet to be validated by CASA. However, the test flights required for approval should be completed by Christmas. "
Sounds like a lot of work is still being done to make YWOL functional for RPT - the planes couldn't land after dark?