Busselton – Melbourne flights to keep on waiting

The first set of commercial passenger flights connecting the Margaret River region to the Eastern States has been postponed for a third time this week, but is still pencilled in to go ahead early next month. Flights between Busselton and Melbourne were expected to take off next week after being halted in March last year and again in February, but a gruelling month-long COVID-19 outbreak in Victoria has seen Jetstar push the start date back by seven days to take off on July 3. A spokesman for Jetstar confirmed current travel restrictions between WA and Victoria were the reason behind the third postponement, but were looking forward to launching soon. “We have decided to delay the start of our new Busselton – Melbourne service by one week,” he said. City of Busselton mayor Grant Henley was crossing his fingers earlier this month that the service would go ahead as planned. He said a third postponement was “frustrating” but a short seven-day push-back period showed “immense positivity” in Jetstar’s intent to launch the route. “It is frustrating but we will continue to work with Jetstar to make this work,” he said. The initiative is expected to bring about 60,000 visitors to the area over the next three years, and contribute more than $40 million to the WA economy over this period. Cr Henley said during the postponement, the airport would be well supported by its fly-in-fly-out operations.