6 Days to Get Home: Students Missing Charter Flights Because Seats Reserved for Indigenous Kids

‘My boys have been left sitting at the airport, bags packed, because they weren’t allowed on a plane with empty seats,’ Derek Lord.

Primary school students are taking six days to get home during the holiday period because direct government-funded charter flights are only available to Indigenous students.

From Years 6 to 7, students in the small remote cattle town of Normanton generally attend boarding school in bigger towns such as Charters Towers—often needing to fly to return home.