As of April 6 Virgin Blue will be launching 2 new routes from Canberra,
Hobart-$99 one way start off fair online
Townsville-$149 one way start off online.
The airline will be launching these as well as Townsville-Gold Coast, Townsville-Cairns and Townsville-Rockhampton using their Embrer E-jets.
The Townsville one is interesting. Hobart I can kind of understand as there are a fair few travellers to Hobart, but Townsville is a weird one and the only thing I can think of is that it is there for Defence Travel as it is mostly staff from the Defence Forces that actually travel up to Townsville. Or it may only be seasonal to attract Canberrans to a warmer climate for the winter.
It will be interesting, although I doubt it will be anything more than an E170