Getting to the Airport

It’s just coming up to 07h30 in the morning. I exit the Pullman Hotel and walk over to the domestic terminal building. It’s a short walk of only about five minutes.

Check-in

Check-in and arrivals are on the same level in the domestic terminal, and it’s all just a little bit confusing. As you enter the building coming off the SkyWalk, you have the luggage belts for QANTAS on your left. Behind them is where the QANTAS self-service check-in counters are located. This is my first time trying their baggage drop machines. All you have to do is scan your boarding pass. A baggage tag is the automatically printed. Even in Economy Class on QANTAS one piece of luggage is included in the ticket price on domestic flights.

Once you’ve tagged your suitcase, you just cart it over to the baggage drop machine, wait for the bar code to be scanned and then watch your suitcase disappear.

Airside

My flight is leaving from gate 1. This part of the terminal is cut off from the rest of the airside area. There’s only a washroom here, and nothing else. From what I understand, to access the main airside concourse, you’d have to go landside again and then through another security checkpoint.

Boarding

Boarding for the flight to Barcaldine and Longreach starts at 08h35 for a 09h00 departure. There’s a bit of a hold up, though, because of some catering issue for the inbound service.

The pilot welcomes passengers on board while boarding is still underway, and tells us that we’ll have a very strong head wind on today’s flight, which results in a longer flight time of just over two hours.

The Cabin & Seat

The cabin looks neat and tidy, with seats arranged in a 2+2 layout. As far as I can tell, the aircraft is in an Economy Class only configuration. The seat pitch is generous, which is reassuring given that the overall flight time to Longreach is three hours.

The Crew

The crew are interesting. There are two young ladies in the cabin – and they obviously don’t get along. The more senior one keeps trying to engage in friendly banter with the more junior cabin crew, but she isn’t having any of it.

We take off in a northerly direction and then make a wide sweeping right hand turn to point us in the general direction of Barcaldine.

The Snack

On the first leg, the crew pass through the cabin with two trolleys. They hand out small bottles of still water and packaged pear and lemon slices. There’s also a full bar service available. I have a coffee to go with my snack. The crew do a second service before they come to collect the trash.

Transit in Barcaldine

Barcaldine airfield makes Berne airport seem like a major hub. The airport building consists of three small wooden huts with a corrugated iron roof.

Only a handful of passengers disembark here, and seventeen join the flight, which returns to Brisbane from Longreach. The stop in Barcaldine is only about thirty minutes.

The captain does a walk around. Shortly after, we restart out engines and continue our journey to Longreach

Up to Barcaldine, our route took us over a lush looking landscape. However, the route from Barcaldine to Longreach takes us over an arid semi-desert landscape that its really beautiful. Looking out the window, I’m awed by the sheer size of Australia and its wide horizons.

Arrival

Longreach is really just a short hop from Barcaldine. The flight time is about 25 minutes from take-off to touch down. I rather like the Dash 8, but I really think close to three hours is the most I can take in one of these birds. They really are quite small and tight.

Longreach airport is only slightly larger than Barcaldine. There is one luggage carousel and two check-in counters. Perhaps most noticeable is the absence of any kind of security screening for departing passengers.

Conclusion

This was a really interesting flight for me because I think it showed just how diverse QANTAS’ operation is and how different to that of the European carriers. For people living in such remote areas, an air service like this is a life line, it’s not just a matter of convenience or comfort. Perhaps that may also help to explain why, in my view, the Australians have a much healthier attitude to aviation than we do in Europe, where aircraft and airlines find them increasingly stigmatized as the root of all evil.