Alliance Airlines

If you want to photograph a Fokker 100 in scheduled or charter service today, sooner or later you end up at the same answer: Australia, or more precisely Alliance Airlines. The airline from Brisbane flies miners to mines in the Outback, provides Qantas with complete aircraft and crews, and operates a fleet that feels like a time trip to European spotters. This page shows you how Alliance works, how to recognize its aircraft and why a trip to see the Fokkers is better made sooner than later.

Alliance Airlines at a glance

Alliance Airlines is an Australian charter and wet lease airline based at Brisbane Airport in Queensland. Behind it stands the listed Alliance Aviation Services, which has traded on the Australian Securities Exchange ASX under the ticker AQZ since 2011. The business model has little in common with classic scheduled airlines: most of the flight hours Alliance flies are not for passengers who buy a ticket, but for customers – mining companies, energy companies, government agencies and other airlines.

The figures for the fiscal year to June 2026 show this clearly. Of just under 110,000 flight hours, around 79,600 were wet lease operations, that is, flights with an Alliance aircraft and Alliance crew on behalf of another airline. A good 27,300 hours came from contracts with resources companies, only around 1,400 from ad hoc charters and fewer than 900 from regular scheduled flights. Alliance itself cites an on-time rate of 95 percent.

The airline does not belong to an alliance – the name is no hint at Star Alliance, oneworld or SkyTeam. How the big alliances work and why charter specialists are rarely members is explained in the article on Star Alliance, oneworld and SkyTeam.

From Flight West to Alliance: the history

Alliance’s roots lie in a bankruptcy. Flight West was a regional airline from Brisbane, founded in 1987, which served remote places on behalf of the Queensland government. In 2001 it ran into trouble, and the collapse of Ansett in September of the same year dealt it the final blow. In April 2002 Alliance’s parent company took over the operating certificate and parts of the fleet, including two Fokker 100s. Alliance started with these two jets.

The founders bet early on a niche that has grown enormously in Australia: flights for the resources industry. Instead of serving scheduled routes with fluctuating load factors, Alliance signed long-term contracts with mine operators. The most important milestones since then:

• 2011: Alliance Aviation Services goes public.
• 2013: Alliance becomes the first operator in Australia to receive Gold status in the Flight Safety Foundation’s BARS safety standard.
• 2015: Announcement of the purchase of six Fokker 70s and 15 Fokker 100s from Austrian Airlines – the Austrians were switching to Embraer at the time.
• 2016: As the first regional operator in Australia, Alliance passes the IATA safety audit IOSA.
• 2019: Qantas buys in with just under 20 percent.
• 2020: Entry into the Embraer E190 with used aircraft, including from Copa Airlines and American Airlines.
• 2022/2023: Qantas wants to take over Alliance entirely, and the competition regulator ACCC rejects it in April 2023. Shortly afterward Alliance buys 30 more E190s from the lessor AerCap, many of them former JetBlue aircraft.
• 2026: Realignment with a renegotiated Qantas contract, write-downs on the Fokker fleet and a new chief: since October 1, 2026, Steven Greenway has led the company.

Codes, callsign and the wet lease effect

• IATA code QQ: appears in the flight numbers of its own scheduled and charter flights.
• ICAO code UTY: shows up in the flight plan and on flight trackers when Alliance flies under its own name.
• Callsign UNITY: how the crew calls in on the radio.

For spotters, though, the most important point is a different one: a large part of Alliance’s flights do not run under QQ or UTY at all. Under wet lease, Alliance provides the aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance, but does not sell its own tickets. The flights then carry the customer’s flight number – for Qantas, that means QF numbers. What exactly the principle means and how it differs from a dry lease is covered in the guide Wet lease explained.

The fleet: Fokker 70, Fokker 100 and Embraer E190

According to the annual report, the fleet on June 30, 2026 comprised exactly 80 aircraft. Five Fokkers were in storage at that time, and 75 aircraft were in active use.

Type	Number	Manufacturer	Typical role	Spotter note
Fokker 70	not broken out	Fokker, Netherlands	Mining charter, also long direct flights	Short fuselage, Tay engines at the rear
Fokker 100	not broken out	Fokker, Netherlands	Mining charter, wet lease	Longer variant, older examples are being retired
Fokker total	35 (June 2026)			including five aircraft in storage
Embraer E190	45 (June 2026)	Embraer, Brazil	Wet lease for QantasLink, charter, FIFO	Engines under the wings

The Fokker 100 and its shorter sister, the Fokker 70, date from the 1980s and 1990s. The Dutch manufacturer Fokker went bankrupt in 1996, and the last aircraft were delivered in 1997. So there have been no new aircraft for almost 30 years – Alliance keeps the fleet alive with its own engineering, used aircraft and a large spare parts stock. Both types are powered by Tay engines from Rolls-Royce.

The Fokker 70 has a special strength at Alliance: according to the airline, its range allows direct flights from the east coast to mines in Western Australia without a stop in Perth. For spotters in Brisbane that means a departing Fokker may well be headed thousands of kilometers across the continent.

The Embraer E190 from Embraer is now the largest part of the fleet. Alliance bought them almost exclusively used – many aircraft previously flew in North and Central America. Their history can therefore often be traced via old registrations, which makes the E190 interesting for registration collectors.

Fokker or Embraer? How to tell the types apart

All three types are regional jets of similar size, but their construction could hardly be more different. Two looks and you have them sorted.

It gets harder between the Fokker 70 and Fokker 100. Both look basically the same, but the 70 is clearly shorter and therefore looks squat, almost as if the wings were too big for the fuselage. The safest way is to count the windows ahead of and behind the wing or check the registration register. For the E190, the article Telling the Embraer E-Jets apart helps separate it from the E170, E175 and E195. A broader overview of jets with rear-mounted engines is given in Recognizing regional jets.

How to recognize Alliance Airlines

Alliance flies in its own livery with the airline’s titles on the fuselage – that applies mainly to the Fokkers and the E190s in charter and mining service. Some of the E190s, on the other hand, wear the colors of QantasLink, because the aircraft fly on wet lease for Qantas. At first glance they look like Qantas’s own aircraft, but they belong to Alliance. The QantasLink page explains which other companies fly under that brand.

The most reliable feature is therefore the type in combination with the registration: a Fokker 70 or 100 with a VH registration in Australia is increasingly surely an Alliance aircraft. QantasLink also used Fokker 100s via its Western Australian subsidiary Network Aviation, but announced in 2025 that it would replace them step by step with Embraer E190s and Airbus A320s. How Australian and other registrations are structured is shown in the basics article Understanding aircraft registrations.

Fly-in-fly-out: the core business in the Outback

Australia’s resources industry often works at places with no town, no road within reasonable distance and no scheduled flights. The solution is called fly-in-fly-out: employees fly directly to the mine for their shift blocks and then home again. By its own account Alliance is the leading provider in this market and points to around 25 long-term contracts. The sites served include mines such as Cannington, Mount Keith or Telfer.

For fiscal year 2026/27 Alliance has announced it will make FIFO the central growth area. The Fokkers suit this use well: Alliance highlights their good takeoff and climb performance, and the Fokker 70, thanks to its range, also manages long direct flights to remote mines.

There are also ad hoc charters for groups and organizations, mainly in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. Scheduled flights under its own name play only a small role, for example between Brisbane and Moranbah or Adelaide and Olympic Dam. How charter and scheduled service differ in general is explained in the article Charter flights and scheduled flights.

The 2026 realignment: what it means for Fokker fans

2026 was a year of upheaval for Alliance. In August the airline agreed with Qantas on a significantly changed wet lease contract: higher prices from July 2026, in return for a gradual reduction from 30 to 23 E190s over the course of the fiscal year to June 2027. Together with five aircraft returning from an expiring dry lease, that frees up twelve E190s that Alliance can deploy itself or sell.

At the same time Alliance took heavy write-downs on the Fokker fleet. The new fleet strategy, as described in the annual report, is:

• Older Fokker 100s are being retired gradually.
• Fokker 70s stay in service where they make operational sense.
• Embraer E190s will be used more across the whole fleet.
• Surplus aircraft, engine cores, spare parts and hangars are for sale.

For you as a spotter the message is clear: the time of the big Fokker fleet is running out. Farewell flights, ferry flights of retired aircraft and stored Fokkers on the apron will be seen more often in the coming years. How not to miss such moments is explained in the articles on farewell flights and last flights and on ferry flights.

Spotting Alliance Airlines in Australia

Because most FIFO flights go to remote mines, you see Alliance mainly at the departure airports. Brisbane is the company headquarters and engineering base, Perth the gateway to the Western Australian mining regions. Add bases in Adelaide, Cairns, Darwin, Rockhampton and Townsville. The typical rhythm of shift commuters creates peaks early in the morning and in the afternoon.

In Sydney, Alliance is a rarer visitor than at the bases. If you spot there anyway, it is worth a look at the planning: the article Plane spotting in Sydney and the spot Shep’s Mound at Sydney Airport show you where you can get regional jets and widebodies in front of your lens. Besides Alliance, in Australia you will meet Rex Regional Express, Jetstar and the Qantas group.

Rare types like the Fokker are popular subjects in the community. How to judge how special a sighting really is, you can read in the article spotting rare aircraft. And in the neighboring country, too, it is worth a look: Air Niugini from Papua New Guinea also used Fokker 70s.

Common mix-ups

• Thinking Alliance is an alliance member – the name has nothing to do with Star Alliance, oneworld or SkyTeam.
• Attributing every E190 in QantasLink colors to Qantas – the aircraft belong to Alliance and fly on wet lease.
• Confusing the Fokker 70 and Fokker 100 – the 70 is clearly shorter, counting windows or checking the registration helps.
• Equating the flight number with the operator – on wet lease, Alliance carries the flight numbers of Qantas or Virgin Australia.
• Thinking Alliance is a scheduled airline – scheduled flights make up only a tiny part of flight hours.
• Thinking the Fokker fleet is stable – since 2026, older Fokker 100s are being retired step by step.

Conclusion

Alliance Airlines is not an airline you fly on vacation with – and that is exactly what makes it exciting. Behind the unassuming name are commuter flights into the Outback, E190s in the service of Qantas and one of the last big Fokker fleets in the world. If you log registration, livery and flight number separately, you can attribute every sighting cleanly. And if you still want to see the Fokker 100 in everyday service, you should not put off the trip to Australia much longer.