Singapore Airlines’ new premium economy product will debut on the Singapore-Melbourne route from late June when the airline resumes seasonal Airbus A380 flights. The A380 returns to Melbourne on the SQ217/218 rotation as part of a seasonal capacity increase during the holiday peak and will operate three times a week from June 26 until September 3, Singapore Airlines said. “U...
L-3 Communications will modify an unspecified number of Gulfstream G550 aircraft for Australia under a US$93.6 million foreign military sales deal announced by the US Department of Defense on December 28. “L-3 Communications Mission Integration, Greenville, Texas, has been awarded a $93,632,287 firm fixed-price undefinitised contract action task order (1648) for Australia Government...
The first of four Bombardier Challenger 604 special missions jets which Cobham Aviation will operate under a 12-year contract to provide search and rescue aircraft for the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) has arrived in Australia. The aircraft, currently registered to Canada’s Field Aviation as C-FIDT, arrived into Adelaide around midday on Wednesday after d...
An investigation has been launched after a Malaysia Airlines plane took off from Auckland Airport on Christmas Day and surprised the pilot with the direction it started flying. Just eight minutes into the direct flight to Kuala Lumpur, MH132's pilot queried why his Airbus A330 was heading so far south. He wondered why the plane was heading towards Melbourne and not taking a more direct f...
Drones are tipped to be one of the most popular presents this Christmas but fledgling pilots have been delivered a stern warning about the potential dangers for new flyers. The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) is urging people to stick to a handful of basic rules in the wake of a high-profile incident where a pro-skier narrowly avoided having a drone fall out of the sky on his head. Pe...
Darwin-based Airnorth will expand out of Northern Australia for the first time when it commences daily services from Toowoomba’s Wellcamp Airport to Melbourne from next March. The flights will be operated by Airnorth’s 76-seat Embraer E170 jets from March 14, with new three-times-weekly Wellcamp-Cairns services to begin at the same time. “This initi...
Hainan Airlines has returned to Sydney for the first time since 2012 with the inaugural direct seasonal service from Xi’an touching down at Sydney Airport on Thursday morning. Hainan launched flights to Sydney in January 2011, when it served Sydney on a Hangzhou-Shenzhen-Sydney routing. However, it pulled off the route a year later. Its new twice-weekly flights fr...
Safeskies President Emeritus Peter Lloyd has made a tandem skydive over Canberra to celebrate his 95th birthday. The December 15 jump from 14,000ft was Lloyd’s fourth in a series of birthday jumps which began in 2000 with a tandem skydive to celebrate his 80th birthday. Lloyd, who is now blind, was attached to jumpmaster Paul Smith, who was making his 11,111th...
The US Department of State has approved the possible sale of three more Boeing CH-47F Chinook helicopters to Australia. The potential Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program deal, which is valued at US$180 million and includes related equipment and support, would take the Australian Army’s fleet size to 10 aircraft. Boeing said it delivered the seventh CH-47F for Army in Au...
Research consultants AMR’s charity reputation index has named the Royal Flying Doctor Service as Australia’s “most reputable charity” for a fifth straight year. The AMR report found the RFDS received top marks on six of the seven criteria the company’s charity reputation index was based on, namely service, innovation, workplace, citizenship, governance, leader...
Virgin Australia has installed SITA’s new flexible passenger check-in technology at its new domestic terminal at Perth Airport. The new common-use hybrid desks can switch from self-service bag drop mode to full-service traditional check-in counters, as required. SITA’s new solution lets airlines adjust the type of service offered for a flight based passenger preferences an...
Qantas is a major taxpayer and contributor to the Australian economy. We comply fully with all our tax obligations and we believe in playing our role in a strong, transparent Australian tax system. In 2013/14 – the year covered by the ATO’s tax transparency report – we paid, collected or generated more than $2 billion in tax revenue for the Government, including the GST,...
