Background Information.

 

The operation of the British Aerospace BAe146 aircraft type by the ‘Qantas’ related companies dates back to January 1991 when Australian Airlines (formerly Trans-Australia Airlines) employed the first aircraft under the ‘Australian AirLink’ name. They had a requirement for a jet aircraft smaller than the Boeing 737 and teamed up with National Jet Systems, Adelaide, to operate this new type on their behalf.

When Australian Airlines was purchased by Qantas in October 1993, the name ‘Australian Airlink’ was simplified to ‘Airlink’ and all the four Australian Airlink aircraft were repainted into the Qantas livery. Airlink (with all the aircraft operated by National Jet Systems on behalf of Qantas), gradually added more BAe146s building up a substantial fleet.

Airlink operated under that name until late 2001 when once again it underwent a change of identity to 'Qantaslink'. This was done to coincide the introduction of the Boeing 717 fleet at the same time, which eventually replaced the entire BAe146 fleet.

The Boeing 717 fleet remains operated by Cobham Aviation Services which was formerly National Jet Systems.

The only BAe146s initially operated independently were VH-YAD, VH-YAE and VH-YAF which were part of the fleet of Southern Australia Airlines and remained that way until Southern Australian was closed down in September 2002.

The three BAe146 aircraft that operated for Australian Air Express (which was originally set up as a joint venture between Australian Airlines and Australia Post) became  part of the StarTrack / Qantas Freight operation (which was a joint venture between Qantas Freight and StarTrack Express) from 2013.

StarTrack Express is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Australia Post.