CHARTER company Alliance Airlines has announced it will open an operations base at Cairns airport from May.
The base will operate two Fokker 100 jets from Cairns and employ 20 people, including 14 flight staff and three engineers.
Alliance Airlines works closely with the mining industry but also does some tourism work and has ferried the North Queensland Cowboys on occasion.
It already has bases in Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane, Townsville and now Cairns.
Alliance general manager commercial, Ken Crawford, said the new base would help tap into the resources boom in northern Australia.
"We saw excellent organic growth from the resources industry, but on top of that there’s very exciting developments in New Guinea and the mining regions of Far North Queensland and the Northern Territory," he said.
"The population base of Cairns, its resources and infrastructure, ideally lends itself to be the next expansion point of Alliance Airlines."
The Fokker 100 aircraft have 100 seats and can fly up to 2500km or for three and a half hours, putting Cairns in range of Western Australia, Adelaide and the Solomon Islands.
Cairns Airport boss Stephen Gregg welcomed the announcement.
"This is great news for the local economy and will bring with it excellent job and business development opportunities," he said.
Meanwhile, the first of a three week trial of daily direct flights from Guam arrived at 12.30am yesterday.
While the exact number of passengers on the Continental Micronesia Boeing 737-800 was unavailable, the jet carries a maximum of 155 passengers and the extra flights are due to seasonal demand.
