Yeah national FIFO was a bit of a nail in the coffin and i know from our area there was only a few guys who took advantage but be interesting to see what happens as guys to Cairns and Regional areas apparently can't make connecting flights from BNE now. The MEL/SYD flights used to be full in the height of construction but they would have been costing Qantas money in the end but the Wednesday Brissy flight was always chockers, speaking to the FIFO guys there was barely ever seats left so who knows.
Rio has slowly started putting quite a few people back on Qantas lately, from what we were told it was to even out the business between the 2 airlines as there is now some minimal price difference between the flights compared to what their was. When I was flying to Perth weekly I know our fares that were being booked were $900 each way, that was a couple of years ago but thats just pure price gouging.
I rang Qantas yesterday and had an excellent agent who knew about the cancellation but it's still showing in the system as operating so they can rebook me but can't refund me until it's officially announced by Qantas and removed from the system, but it's still pretty piss poor finding out on Facebook/Qantas Source/ABC all prior to anything official from Qantas.
Virgin has really upped their game too, they may even try and make a case for at least 1 over East flight a week even 1 to Brisbane would give them an upper hand. Karratha Airport redevlopment starts in June and I know the shire/council has been trying to woo Virgin into a Phuket/Bali flight so be interesting to see what happens there. Compared to when Virgin started here their flight times are much better and service is 100000x better. Just the frequency thats a let down.
It's funny though people whinge and moan about the FIFO workers but ultimately they are the ones that give us the flights albeit at ludicrous prices. Quite often it can be $798 to fly to Perth ONE WAY some days, Tuesday and Wednesdays will be through the roof again no doubt as more people fly via Perth again. Lucky for competition we have Virgin and Alliance to offer cheap seats!
It's funny a few years ago Qantas was even going to offer a tag on flight from Exmouth - Perth-Learmonth-Karratha-Learmonth-Perth but it's never come to fruition.