Just watch us fly.
Sunshine Coast-based airline Bonza has officially been given its wings to 17 destinations across the country, including 13 from our own home base.
It adds competition to the players already servicing the Sunny Coast Airport, and we all know competition is a very good thing indeed for the consumer.
The world was limited for too long by the pandemic and the curious and adventurous are busting out.
While we are no doubt the most privileged people on the planet to reside on the Coast, we are also human. And it is human to want to experience new places. Poets and songwriters call it ‘wanderlust’.
In spending time and money, a person becomes richer. For my money, it is the ultimate, no-lose investment.
Travel satisfies our curiosity and galvanises our self-competency. Studies have shown that it improves personal empowerment, trust, personal identity and emotional resilience.
It helps secure social bonding because travelling can lead to warm embraces and the company of loved ones.
Travel brings families and friends together in ways FaceTime and WhatsApp cannot. Even though humans have evolved, we have the primal, innate desire to wander the land and water. It is embedded deeply in our psyche.
Humans are curious by nature, and travel always offers up new experiences to grow from. And so often the times that things were unpredicted or uncomfortable make the best stories.
International travel offers its own teachings. Going somewhere new, with perhaps a foreign language or a completely unfamiliar culture, demands a leap of faith and of imagination.
When we board a plane for some faraway land, we hope, wish for and excitedly anticipate something magic, something ineffable.
Bonza’s approval to get airborne will no doubt be a boon for Sunshine Coast tourism, and it will be up to us to make our home as wonderful an experience for our visitors as possible.
Bonza CEO Tim Jordan has said he ultimately wants to see the skies all over Australia smattered with purple. We who love to travel are just happy to have more opportunities to get back in the skies.
As J.R.R. Tolkien wrote: “Not all those who wander are lost.”
Dr Jane Stephens is a UniSC journalism lecturer, media commentator and writer. The views expressed are her own.
