Alliance Airlines will take over flying to Rio Tinto’s Argyle Diamond mine after the Brisbane-based company won a long-term fly in, fly out (FIFO) contract previously held by Skywest.
Alliance, which listed on the ASX in December, announced today it had been issued with a Letter of Limited Notice to Proceed, ahead of a formal contract execution.
The agreement will see Alliance operate 14 weekly flights between Perth and Argyle from April 16 utilising a 100-seat Fokker 100 jet.
In addition, Alliance noted that it has the potential to operate services from Sydney and Brisbane to Argyle utilising its 70 seat Fokker 70 aircraft.
From its Perth base, Alliance already serves clients including Citic Pacific Mining, BHP Billiton and Newcrest Mining, while the company has a number of other bases around the country serving the mining industry.
The Argyle contract was originally won by Skywest in 2002 and was the first fly in, fly out contract for the airline, providing the catalyst for it to start operating jets.
The loss of the Argyle contract is the second significant loss for Skywest, which is understood to have lost out to Qantas on a major contract for Fortescue Metals Group.
Skywest continues to serve Rio Tinto Iron Ore’s West Angelas and Barimunya mines, and in September last year announced that it had gained a 12 month extension to its contract to operate services to and from BHP Billiton’s Area C and Yandi iron ore mines.
Skywest is expected to come under further competitive pressure in its bids for charter contracts, with Qantas subsidiary Network Aviation adding more aircraft to its fleet this year.
On March 5 the airline appointed Jason Bitter as its new CEO following the resignation of Mark Shelton for personal reasons. Bitter is a 15 year veteran of the airline industry and was most recently involved in the establishment of Japanese low cost carrier Peach Aviation.
