News briefs from August 2026

AUGUST 4, 2026: Jetstar has appointed Cath O'Brien as Head of Commercial New Zealand. O’Brien joins Jetstar from the Board of Airline Representatives NZ (BARNZ), where she has served as Executive Director since 2022.

Read the news release here.

AUGUST 4, 2026: The Government of Western Australia will make available over AUD3.8 million in grants to support improvements to regional and remote airports through the 2027-29 Regional Airports Development Scheme (RADS). Open to regional and remote airport owners and leaseholders and offered every two years, the grants are generally for 50% of total project costs and applicants are encouraged to also seek funding from other government or private agencies towards their project/s.

Read the news release here.

AUGUST 4, 2026: Sydney Airport processed 9.96 million passengers in Q2 2026, with more than 20.7 million passengers travelling through the airport in the first half of the year. Passenger volumes for the first six months of 2026 were 1.5% higher than the same period last year. International passenger traffic increased 2.1% to 8.44 million passengers, while domestic passenger traffic grew 1.0% to 12.29 million passengers.

Read the news release here.

AUGUST 4, 2026: Virgin Australia discontinued Fokker flights between Brisbane (BNE) and Newcastle/Williamtown (NTL) and Brisbane and Rockhampton (ROK) over the weekend. Going forward, the airline will use its own B737-800s and B737-8s on the routes rather than the wet-leased Fokkers.

Read the news report here.

AUGUST 3, 2026: Papua New Guinea’s National Airports Corporation has asked interest parties to submit tenders to refurbish the Buka Airport (BUA) terminal building. The submission deadline is August 31.

Read the tender announcement here.

AUGUST 3, 2026: Launceston Airport (LST) has posted its busiest year on record for the 12 months to June 30, 2026. Across the 12-month period, monthly records were broken on eight occasions with January the busiest month in the airport’s history with a total of 160,791 travellers and 1,478,925 passengers flew in and out of the airport across the financial year, representing a 3% increase on the previous financial year. 

Read the news release here.