Skytrans Australia
airline
Skytrans Australia (founded as Skytrans) is an Australian airline and air charter business based in Cairns, Rockhampton and Townsville, in Queensland. The airline operates RPT (Regular Public Transport), charter and ACMI (Aircraft, Crew, Maintenance and Insurance) services in Cairns, Horn Island, Brisbane, Rockhampton and Townsville.
On 31 March 2015, two months after being placed into administration, the company returned to the skies. As of March 2024, the airline is now owned by European-based Avia Solutions Group.
History
Skytrans was founded by David and Sue Barnard in October 1990 as a charter airline, and began scheduled flights in 1993. In November 2000, Skytrans merged with AirSwift Aviation, another small regional airline based in Cairns. In June 2001, Skytrans took over services to Cooktown and Karumba from MacAir Airlines. In January 2005, the airline began to operate in competition with QantasLink on the Cairns to Townsville route, operating from its own terminals in both cities.
In December 2006, the airline was acquired from its founders by Australian Aviation Holdings, owner of Queensland Regional Airlines (QRA) and Inland Pacific Air. Skytrans and QRA subsequently merged under the Skytrans Regional brand.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Skytrans Australia” is airline. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Skytrans, Australia and airline, not as a finished interpretation.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q499869. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2015, 2024, 1990 and 1993.
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This entry incorporates text from “Skytrans Australia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.