Emirates to top 5,000 Aussie employees
The number of Australians employed by the Emirates Group is set to top 5,000 as the airline prepares to open a service centre in Adelaide, Emirates says. Australians make up the fourth largest national group among the 130 nationalities working as Emirates air crew, according to the carrier. In all, Emirates Airline and Group (including
Qantas to allow upgrades at the gate
Qantas will allow frequent flyers to upgrade their seats at the gate following a trial of the new system launched in May. Previously, processing of upgrade requests stopped a few hours before flight, meaning that any premium seats left vacant by last-minute cancellations, no-shows or missed connections remained empty. Qantas Loyalty chief Lesley Grant said
China Southern to ramp up Australian-London flights
China Southern Airlines will increase its flights connecting Australia and the UK from three per week to daily, citing strong passenger demand months after Qantas scaled back services on the route. China Southern’s “Canton Route,” launched in June, connects Melbourne and Sydney to London Heathrow via China Southern’s hub in Guangzhou, with a connection time
Airbus has delivered the front fuselage for the first flyable A350 XWB test aircraft (MSN1) to the Final Assembly Line in Toulouse. The 21 metre long section, which arrived pre-equipped with its systems, will be mounted in a giant assembly jig where it will be joined to the centre and aft fuselage sections during the
Qantas to leave BlackBerry for iPhone
Qantas will ground its fleet of 1300 BlackBerrys in favour of the iPhone, an airline official has said. The move — more bad news for struggling BlackBerry maker Research in Motion — comes in response to a recent staff survey indicating a strong preference for the Apple smartphone, Qantas chief information officer Paul Jones told
RAAF gets first two repainted planes
Boeing Defence Australia has delivered the first two RAAF aircraft repainted under a $20 million contract signed in March. In all, the company will repaint 65 RAAF aircraft. An AP-3C maritime surveillance aircraft based at RAAF Edinburgh was repainted at Air New Zealand’s paint facility in Christchurch, while the first of three C-130H airflifters based
