The company will run seven weekly return flights to Melbourne and three return flights to Cairns using the Embraer E170 jets from March 2016 in their first southern market push. ​They will be the first jet services from the Toowoomba airport. Brisbane West Wellcamp Airport general manager Phil Gregory said the announcement was an early Christmas present for the Toowoomba community. "Airnorth is the leading airline provider in northern Australia and we are delighted to welcome them on board. "We are extremely excited to be able to offer our customers direct return flights to two of Australia's premier travel destinations," Mr Gregory said.

The 36-metre long Embraer E170 jets carry 76 passengers with a crew of four - two pilots and two cabin attendants – and cruise at 820km/h. Mr Gregory said he expected the Melbourne and Cairns routes would be as popular as the initial Sydney service, which started a year ago. "We have had overwhelming support from within our region and we can now offer weekday and weekend getaways to three of Australia's most popular destinations," Mr Gregory said. The Melbourne service will be Airnorth's first southern route, he said. Bookings details will be announced in early 2016.

Airnorth carries 300,000 passengers each year and has its head office in Darwin where it employs 220 staff. It is owned by Bristow Helicopters Australia Pty Ltd and operates over 300 weekly flights into 24 destinations across northern Western Australia, the Northern Territory, Queensland and to Dili in East Timor. The airport is the first privately funded airport of significant size in Australia and has been conceived and developed by Toowoomba's Wagner family. It can cater for aircraft up to 747 jumbo airliner size. It began operating in November 2014 and 12 months later the first jumbo aircraft – enroute to China from Sydney – landed on November 23, 2015.

Since it opened there have been almost 70,000 passengers in the first 12 months. In September 2014, Qantas began flying its QantasLink regional services out of Brisbane West Wellcamp Airport, with airport owner John Wagner describing the announcement as the "beginning" of a new era in Queensland aviation. Mr Wagner said he wanted to take existing business away from Brisbane Airport. "Absolutely we do (but) they won't notice it," he said. "You've got to keep in mind if we got to a million passengers a year, which I think we will in pretty short order over the next couple of years, that will be similar to a Mackay or a Newcastle."

The airport is also in talks with Qantas about adding two extra QantasLink flights in 2016.