I'd say the routes are too short for this type of equipment.

If I understand correctly, QF is required perform maintenance on aircraft by the number of flying hours or the number of take-offs and landings, whichever comes first. It's kind of like having your car serviced, every 10,000 kms or six months.

With these short domestic hops, the 332 is making too many take-off and landings, ergo too many maintenance checks. It is more economical for QF to reduce the take-offs and use them on longer routes.

Someone correct me if I am wrong. This is just my best guess.

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Latitudes.

For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move; to feel the needs and hitches of our life more nearly; to come down off this feather-bed of civilisation, and find the globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)