Qantas has confirmed that it will support the Yes Campaign in the upcoming referendum for the Indigenous Voice to Parliament. To that end, it will paint three Qantas group aircraft in a special Yes campaign livery. During Alan Joyce’s leadership of the airline, it has adopted similarly progressive views on...

China Southern Airlines, with the country’s largest aircraft fleet, is returning to service Brisbane, Queensland, from Guangzhou starting 17 November 2023. Initially, with four flights per week, the schedule is expected to expand to daily flights. The Brisbane schedule will start like this Last week, the Chinese Government announced it...

South Americabn airline LATAM plans to reinstate its direct Melbourne to Santiago de Chile route, three times a week from 1 September. The airline paused its Melbourne flights three years ago due to the pandemic. You will soon be able to fly one of the airlines 787 Dreamliners out of...

Air India has been exercising their Public Relations muscles over the last week, releasing a brand identity and announcing new business Class, First Class and Economy cabins, aircraft orders and potential new routes. That’s a lot. But we have heard big announcements from Air India before. The question is, will...

This is not exactly a secret, but I just took notice of it on a recent flight. The cabin crew don’t have to look at the actual recline of your seat. They have an actual indicator that tells them that your seat is correctly positioned. Recently observed in Business Class...

I have spent much time in the air over the last fortnight, visiting Adelaide, Auckland, Brisbane and Melbourne. At least twice I have heard Qantas Captains or First Officers announce a delay in takeoff or circling before landing due to a lack of Air Traffic Control staff. The SMH reports...

The Australian edition of The Guardian is running a story about Qatar Airways using a loophole in aviation law and its bilateral agreement with Australia to run extra flights to Melbourne via Adelaide. These close-to, or in fact, empty flights between Melbourne and Adelaide are a way of introducing a...

If you live in the south-east of Sydney, Sydney Airport is warning that you are facing some increased night time curfew noise for airport maintenance projects. Expect noise disruption during curfew between now and the end of 2024. The noise will happen during the ‘curfew’ period between 11pma nd gan,...

Cathay Pacific has just released a video, and not much else, with a lush and moody animation about its new ‘Aria’ Business Class suite, with a door (an apparent necessity these days) for its Boeing 777-300ERs. Other than the visual (see below), this is all they have said: ‘Savour the...

QF5 is actually that seasonal international flight using a Boeing 737 Dreamliner between Sydney and Rome. But you can enjoy just the domestic leg between Sydney and Perth, leaving from the International T1 to enjoy the dining and drinking pleasures of the Qantas First Class Lounge. You can sometimes do...

Singapore Airlines (SIA) is increasing its level of service to equal to or surpassing pre-pandemic levels across its network. Let’s start with the increased service in Australia and then touch on other international destinations. Increased services to Cairns, Darwin, Melbourne and Perth Let’s work through these changes and additions to...

Finland might be far away and ordinarily have little to do with Australia. But in the last few years, Finnair, a OneWorld member, has been a popular carrier to take Australians to Europe from Qantas flights to Tokyo, Singapore and Bangkok or Qatar flights from Australia to Doha. Qantas even...

Qantas late last month announced the delivery of the final aircraft in its order of 14 of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner jets. But if we cast out minds back, you might remember that soon-to-retire CEO, Alan Joyce originally had options for over 90 aircraft. According to the AFR, Joyce cancelled options...

Joe Ashton of the Australian Financial Review (AFR) is one of my favourite reads for airline and tourism gossip. His acerbic wit has gotten him into legal trouble, but I delight in his cutting and well-researched remarks, especially concerning Qantas. Background to Qantas and Joe Ashton He is not a...

British Airways (definitely not my favourite airline) is bringing back its Airbus A380 (definitely IS my favourite plane) daily, to service the London/Singapore route, from 31 March 2024. Good and bad ET is reporting that BA11/BA12 will use and A380, replacing the regular Boeing 777-300ER. That means an increase of...