Although many air travelers are counting down the minutes until they can get off the plane and away from sitting in cramped quarters with hundreds of strangers, there’s a certain cachet these days in offering extreme long-haul flights. Qantas Airways wants to be the next to claim the title of world’s longest nonstop flight, with plans for a new route that would take 20 hours. [More]
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Some Airlines Now Rewarding Passengers For Using Airbnb
By 10.5.16
It’s not uncommon for an airline to partner with hotel chains to earn and/or use rewards points, but now some carriers are looking at the growing sharing economy and seeing potential for rewards partnerships. [More]
Crushed Electronic Gadget Caused Fire On Qantas Flight
By 9.28.16
Discussion of the now-recalled Samsung Galaxy Note 7 and its occasionally exploding batteries had an interesting side effect: it brought the problem of lithium-ion battery fires, even those caused by non-Samsung devices, back to the headlines. Like the device that was crushed inside the seat mechanism and caught fire during a recent flight from Los Angeles to New York. [More]
Don’t Get Stuck Paying For A Flight You Can’t Take; Know Your Airline’s 24-Hour Cancellation Policy
By 2.4.16
You can spend months, and thousands of dollars, putting together a trip abroad, but no matter how much effort you take to avoid travel trouble, unforeseen circumstances can force you to change your plans. Thankfully, most airlines flying to and from the U.S. have a policy that lets passengers cancel tickets within 24 hours of booking. Note that we said “most airlines” — not all. [More]
No, Qantas Isn’t Giving Away Free First Class Tickets For Liking A Post On Facebook
By 3.16.15
It’s a Facebook post in which the company name is misspelled. It contends that an underwhelming number of passengers is reason to celebrate. It states that all you have to do to get free first class seats is to “Like” the post, and that “winner’s will be inbox’d on March 17.” Nothing about this seems legitimate, and yet more than 85,000 people thought it was worth a shot. [More]
Qantas Flight Grounded Due To Actual Snake On Actual Plane
By 9.23.13
At this point, there have surely been more “Snakes on a Plane” jokes made on the Internet than there were actual ticket sales to the 2006 film. Even if we weren’t able to make that joke, it’s probably still newsworthy that a snake as narrow as a ballpoint pen has the power to ground an international flight and all of its passengers. [More]
Hell Is Flying Across The Pacific With 26 Barfing, Pooping Norovirus-Infected Teens
By 8.5.13
I used to think that there couldn’t be anything worse than being in a closed environment like a cruise ship or a nursing home where quickly-mutating norovirus makes multiple passes through the population. Then I learned about the flight from Chile to Australia where 26 high school students came down with the disease while in the air. [More]
Allegedly Drunk Man Allegedly Lighting Up In Plane Bathroom Prompts Emergency Landing
By 12.19.12
There’s the guy sitting next to you who allegedly has such bad breath you allegedly can’t breathe out of your nose, and then there are the more serious kind of claims. Allegations are flying over in Australia, after Qantas airlines says a(n allegedly) drunk passenger (allegedly) lit up a cigarette in an airplane bathroom on a flight from Sydney to Japan, prompting an emergency landing that cost the airline $120,000. [More]
Should Single Men Be Barred From Sitting Next To Unaccompanied Minors On Planes?
By 8.13.12
I’m a single guy (Hello ladies…) and I’ve also sat next to an unaccompanied minor on an airplane without issue. But if I were a passenger on Australian carrier Qantas, I would have to switch seats with an adult woman because apparently my Y chromosome tags me, and all adult males, as a potential threat to children flying solo. [More]
Dirty Diaper Grounds Qantas Flight
By 2.3.12
A few years back, I had the unpleasant experience of sitting behind a baby that had vomited all over his row only an hour into a flight from San Francisco to New York. I remember wishing at the time that there would be some non-disastrous reason for the plane to have to make an early landing so I could get away from the smell. Little did I know it would only have taken a single dirty diaper. [More]
Sorry A Guy Died Next To You, Here's A Coupon
By 9.7.11
An Australian airline is giving money off coupons to passengers who sat near a man as he died while eating the in-flight meal. [More]
Two Airlines Ground Airbus A380s After Qantas Engine Explosion
By 11.4.10
After what Australian airline Qantas calls a “significant engine failure” during a flight from Singapore to Sydney, both it and Singapore Airlines have temporarily grounded their fleets of Airbus A380 jumbo jets. [More]
Some Airlines Jettisoning First Class Seats
By 10.20.10
Global austerity has lead some airlines to chuck first class seats out the air lock. [More]
Woman Sues Qantas Airline After Screaming Child Makes Her Deaf
By 7.26.10
A 67-year-old American woman traveling in Australia last year has sued Qantas, because she says a screaming baby on board one of their flights made her deaf. Now before shake your head, what she describes in her suit is pretty horrific: “The boy allegedly leaned back over his armrest toward [her] and let out a scream so severe that blood erupted from her ears, leaving her ‘stone cold deaf’.” On the other hand, Qantas maintains that it has no way of predicting when a child might scream, since children naturally do that sort of thing. [More]
Consumerist Poll: Is First-Class Travel Really Necessary?
By 5.28.09
Faced with a 20% drop in ‘premium’ travel as compared to a year ago, some airlines (Qantas, BA) have started cutting back on their first-class fanciness. Some (Emirates, Air France, Lufthansa) find the idea “unthinkable”. Yet those airlines who continue to invest in first-class travel might be making the smarter move: they’re hoping these passengers will stay loyal when the economy bounces back. Which is not such a bad idea, considering the fact that first-class passengers are the ones keeping the airlines afloat. (Uh, aloft?)
