Fly Corporate landed one of the five Saab 340B Plus aircraft to be used for the Brisbane and Melbourne services from November 12 at the Illawarra Regional Airport for the first time on Wednesday. The 34-seat twin turboprop planes – similar to those used by Regional Express – will offer passengers a full in-flight service.

The launch of the flights – to Brisbane Airport and Essendon Airport in Melbourne – comes about five months after rapid collapse of former operator JetGo.

“This has been a long haul, to get another airline service to come to Albion Park and we’ve been ... very conservative in our decision-making process, given the history,” Cr Saliba said.

“We’re very fortunate to have landed with Fly Corporate; they have over 41 years of experience … and are very reliable.”

The mayor urged the community to support the service and stressed the council had done its due diligence to try and avoid a repeat of the mess left by JetGo’s financial crash-landing.

Cr Saliba said she understood passengers left stranded by the suspension of JetGo flights would be hesitant, but believed Fly Corporate “ticks all the boxes”.

“No matter what we had done we could not have predicted what was going to happen with JetGo,” she said. 

“With Fly Corporate, we’ve been very, very thorough. We have been through their books with a fine-tooth comb. I’m as confident as I can be that we have done everything we possibly can.”