Bonza, the new ultra-low-cost airline set to take to Australian skies from mid next year, has unveiled plans to grow to a fleet of eight aircraft within its first 12 months of operating.

Speaking at the Centre for Aviation (Capa) summit in Sydney on Wednesday, Bonza chief executive Tim Jordan explained the airline – which plans to establish new routes between larger cities and regional holiday destinations and mostly avoid flights between capital cities – will operate eight Boeing 737-8 MAX planes across 40 different routes in its first year.

Jordan said about 40 regional airports had expressed an interest in being among Bonza’s initial destinations, with flights set to begin in the second quarter of 2022 pending regulatory approval.

Budgie smugglers and bikinis bearing the airline’s purple branding will be among merchandise sold on board each Bonza flight, Jordan said, noting he expects an onboard atmosphere shaped by “holidaymakers, bachelor parties, leisure and fun”.

Jordan said the airline will achieve ultra-low-cost fares by only flying three or four frequencies per week on routes that aren’t currently operated by other carriers, and will target only leisure travellers. “(We’ll be) connecting points A and C without an inconvenient stop at B,” he said.

He said the first destinations would be regional councils and airports who can see the “bigger picture” in drawing in new domestic tourists, suggesting Bonza would be seeking to negotiate cheaper airport fees.

Jordan, in a discussion about the benefits of the under-construction western Sydney airport, also raised the idea of opening up Bankstown airport – a metropolitan airport in Sydney that caters to flight schools and charter operations – to more passenger operations to become the city’s third airport.

“The more airports the better. If there could be three airports in Sydney, beautiful. Beautiful absolutely,” he said.

You can read more about Bonza here:

Brisbane - the host city of the 2032 Olympic Games - says it will not send civic representatives to Beijing.

The Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, earlier said state officials would abide by the federal diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Games.

A Brisbane City Council spokesman said:

We will follow the State Government’s approach to sending representatives to the Beijing Winter Olympics.

Good luck to all of the Australian athletes.

The prime minister’s office has condemned the actions of a staffer working for federal Liberal MP Andrew Laming, calling their choice to dress up as Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager who was last month acquitted on all charges after shooting dead two Black Lives Matter protesters last year, for a delayed Halloween party as “completely inappropriate”.

Today the Guardian revealed that electoral officer Barclay McGain – who was sacked (and later rehired) by Lamming over a controversial schoolies video that denigrated Indigenous Australians – had posted a photo of himself on Facebook holding a gel blaster gun that bears resemblance to an assault rifle, dressed as US teen Kyle Rittenhouse on the night he killed two men during protests for racial justice in Wisconsin last year. Rittenhouse was last month cleared of all charges related to these deaths and the injury of another man after his lawyers argued he acted in self-defence.

A federal government spokesman said McGain behaviour was “completely inappropriate and the prime minister’s office has contacted Mr Laming to raise its serious concerns and options for further action”.

The employment of electoral staff is the responsibility of individual MPs, and while McGain used to be a member of the Liberal party he resigned after being suspended in relation to the schoolies video.

When contacted by Guardian Australia, McGain said he was “not particularly worried” that the costume would affect his employment status, as it was outside work hours and Rittenhouse had been found not guilty. He said that costume was for a delayed Halloween party, was designed to entertain people and that “The notion that I was impersonating a murderer or glorifying a murderer, I just don’t think it stacks up.”

In the 2009 schoolies video, McGain interviewed school leavers about whether the Australian flag should be changed and was seen laughing when one school leaver said: “I mean we’ve got to stop celebrating a culture that couldn’t even invent the bloody wheel for God’s sake. We’ve got to start enjoying and living in western culture.”

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