The Shellharbour City Council is soliciting offers from airlines willing to resume scheduled passenger services to Shellharbour, Wave FM has reported. The airport has not seen regular flights since the demise of JetGo Australia (Brisbane International) in June 2018.
The regional authority is seeking a carrier to operate routes to each of Melbourne and Brisbane International or Gold Coast Coolangatta. According to the report, Corporate Air (Australia) (FC, Canberra) and a charter management company Stratus Aviation (Gold Coast Coolangatta) have expressed interest in serving Wollongong.
"We have been for some time constructing a plan to put in place a new regional carrier in collaboration with one of our Airline Partners. When the unfortunate events of JetGo happened we approached Illawarra council as have other carriers to consider replacing the service. As is on public record the council have in no way shape or form made any decision on this matter," Stratus Aviation said in a statement.
Wollongong, called Illawarra Regional Airport, is located some 80 kilometres south of Sydney Kingsford Smith on the Pacific coast of New South Wales. Besides Wollongong itself, the facility also serves the cities of Shellharbour and Port Kembla.
Prior to its collapse, JetGo was operating services out of Wollongong to each of Melbourne Essendon, Brisbane, and Dubbo. It also briefly served the route to Wagga Wagga at the beginning of 2018.
