Services also received a giant drop when Ansett was placed into voluntary liquidation in late 2001. Approximately 40% of Townsville's flights and capacity to Brisbane were cut because of Ansett's financial collapse. The same year also represented the start of a new era in domestic travel for Townsville International Airport: in February 2001, Virgin Blue (now Virgin Australia) made Townsville its first regional destination, and passenger figures rose by 25% that year. Then in June 2001, Qantas announced that the airline would resume international services to Singapore in September. In August, Qantas announced that it would resume Townsville-Sydney services using Boeing 717 aircraft acquired when Qantas bought out Impulse Airlines. When Ansett collapsed, Qantas and Virgin expanded services to exploit the gap that Ansett left.