Ballarat had a long runway from the war however in their infinite wisdom the council dug it up and only left a GA airfield. If they had actually maintained a serviceable airport they would probably have a few jet services by now.

Ballarat, 100,000+ population plus thousands more in surrounding towns, it's own tourist attractions, 40km from Daylesford, close to the Pyrenees wine region, Grampians not far away and many other attractions and surrounding towns for feeder loads. As above if the local council had kept the long runway and not sold it for housing they could have a quite nice jet capable airport now with some tourist spots to support it. To put it in perspective the combined population of Albury/Wodonga is still less than Ballarat. There would definitely be a viable load base for direct Sydney and Brisbane flights and close enough to Melbourne to drag passengers there for lower cost, with reasonable bus/train and road connections to make it work.

Looking at the sat pictures it would still be quite easy to add 800 mtrs to the effective length of 18/36 by building over Airport road to the south up to the rail line. Not sure the residents to south would like the idea though. What a missed opportunity, with the high speed rail line being built to Ballarat it would have not cost much more to run it further out to the Airport and make it a true secondary/tertiary option for Melbourne residents.

however in their infinite wisdom the council

While I have no specific knowledge of this airport, apart from the occasional trip in and out, I have run some studies in the past elsewhere and, unfortunately, short-sighted council decisions have been unproductive for the local airport's future viability. A case of councils needing some competent technical input to the non-aviation thoughts provided by the local civil engineers ....

If in doubt, the Goldy.

The council wanted, probably still does, a major firefighting base located there with jet ops. As it is it ramps up in summer with a Coulson base.

Bonza now advertising for Captain - Inflight Customer Experience team.

Sounds very VB-esque in its position title.

Co-pilots and Cabin Crew also.

Cheers

Do I get to wear 4-bar epaulettes as the "Captain - Inflight Customer Experience" team?

Wait until the grubs, sorry I mean the passengers, are referred to as ‘guests’, and the job titles include the word ‘specialist’ in them.

Would be the first airline down under completely crewed front and back via an agency, Parc in this case.

First Officer - Communications & Turbulence Event Advisor
Cabin Manager - Door 1L Coordinator
Cabin Crew - Sommelier (Whine merchants)

Nah, if it was DJ-esque it would be "Inflight Customer Experience Specialist" (or Advisor)....... Virgin Village used to have more 'specialists' than an oncology convention and it appeared as their only speciality was retaining a job while contributing nothing.

And no one flies a jet out of there. It's 3+ hours to drive to Melbourne, 5+ to Sydney. Flying is a viable option, but you are only offered a turboprop. Ballarat is 1 hour drive to Melbourne airport and not much longer to Avalon. It can take longer than that to drive to the airport from some Melbourne suburbs. Anywhere is basically a commute and fly from Ballarat. That's why it's not serviced by anyone with anything.

No way a jet would be any faster on Melbourne - Albury, it would make zero difference, VA did operate the E-Jet on the Sydney route, but downgraded to the ATR when the E-Jets retired. As for Ballarat, the key is offering it as an alternative to Melbourne, both for locals and Melbourne travellers. Why has no one used it, because traditional regional flights operate to the capital of that state, ie Melbourne, and yes it's way easier to drive or catch the train for such a short distance. The other massive reason, is like Bendigo the runway is way too short for a decent operator to fly interstate connections as well as poor navaid service for an area prone to bad weather. To make Ballarat suitable a significant upgrade would be required, ILS installation and major runway and apron works, as well as a terminal.

So that turboprops could operate there? 'Cause that's all you are going to get. There's been no appetite for any intrastate services with any type of equipment, regardless of the facilities. The only thing I can think of was a short lived attempt with a Piaggio P166 to Melbourne back in the 80's. Even Kendell back in the day didn't go there with Saabs, and they ran to Warnambool and Portland etc.

RNAV aproaches are the now and the future. Why use ground based navaids when an RNP-AR will get you down to similar minimas?

does anyone knows who P McN left so early?

It's a wee bit longer than that, but it IS dual lane all the way, which makes for a reasonable drive. But I'm reading into their business plan that it is not so much about whether your capital airport is more convenient. Third airlines that failed in Aus like Compass and Impulse failed when Aus was a very different place. Who knows how this will go, but good on em for having a crack!

Rumour has it that he wanted his former Employer, Swissport, to get the ground handling contract. Supposedly he didn’t have support for this, so he walked. All rumours though.

Tik tok. June 30 is only 10 weeks away.

Did Impulse fail did it? I thought it was repainted silver with a big orange star on it....

In any case, no one serves Ballarat as the runway is not long enough to provide even viable turboprop service. Again the point would be to offer an alternative to Melbourne for Western Victorian travelers as well as a cheap option for low cost airlines to draw passengers from Melbourne. It matters nowt now as the land has been used up for other purposes and residential encroachment means there's no chance of the current site being used for such a purpose.