MacAir's sudden move into receivership has meant thousands of its passengers are now left stranded.
All of today's flights were suspended, says an official at MacAir who wishes to remain anonymous.
She says the airline is offering passengers a full refund on tickets.
The official was unable to say when flights will resume because the carrier is now in administration and receivership.
MacAir late yesterday appointed Jonathan McLeod as administrator. He is principal of Brisbane-based corporate restructuring and insolvency firm McLeod & Partners.
One of the airline's largest creditors, Australian banking giant Suncorp-Metway, also earlier today appointed Justin Walsh as receiver and manager. He is from the Brisbane office of accounting firm Ernst & Young.
The state's transport minister John Mickel says in a statement today that it was the receiver that grounded the airline's entire fleet.
He says: "The director-general of Queensland Transport met today with the receivers ...and the receiver advised that it would seek to have flights resume as soon as possible".
In the meantime, the government is organising ad hoc charter flights.
Mickel says there was a charter flight today - organised by the government - that left the large regional city of Townsville and visited smaller townships in the state - namely Hughenden, Richmond, Julia Creek and Mount Isa - before returning to Townsville.
MacAir has a state government contract to provide passenger services to some remote townships in the state but now that the airline has gone into receivership the government has issued a new tender.
A spokeswoman for the minister says some airlines have already expressed an interest and the government will be appointing a winner as soon as possible.
MacAir is a Brisbane-based carrier that operates scheduled and charter passenger services using a fleet of seven Saab 340Bs and one ATR 42-500.
Prior to today it was operating to 29 destinations in Queensland and the Northern Territory and transported thousands of passengers each day.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
