Australians will have a new option to South America from October 2017 when LATAM Airlines begins nonstop flights from Melbourne to Santiago, Chile. The oneworld alliance member plans to serve Melbourne from its Santiago hub three times a week with Boeing 787-9s. The inaugural service is due to take off on October 5 2017 and
Australia has become an all Boeing 787 destination for Vietnam Airlines after the Skyteam alliance member switched both its Melbourne and Sydney services to the next-generation Dreamliner. Vietnam Airlines’ first 787 flight to Australia arrived on Friday morning, when VN781 operated by 787-9 VN-A865 touched down at Melbourne Tullamarine at about 0930, after an eight
Chinese airlines will have unrestricted capacity into Australia after the federal government announced it had reached an agreement with China for an “open aviation market” between the two countries. The agreement, announced on Sunday, paves the way for China-based carriers to maintain the furious pace of growth into this country in recent times, catering for the
Regional carrier FlyPelican is adding a second route from Dubbo with nonstop flights to Canberra starting on January 30. The services will be operated by 19-seat Jetstream 32 aircraft and run seven times a week, FlyPelican said on Friday. The airline’s schedules show two flights a day on Mondays and Fridays, with a single return service on
GE Australia has signed up with Qantas’s carbon offset program Future Planet. The engine manufacturer has committed to support Qantas’s efforts to offset carbon emissions from its flights through backing projects around the world. Qantas head of environment Alan Milne said this latest partnership extended a relationship with GE that stretches back many years,
German-based airberlin has added New Zealand to its offline network thanks to new codesharing arrangements with Virgin Australia for trans-Tasman services. The expanded codeshare agreement covers 10 routes from Australia to five New Zealand destinations, airberlin said in a statement on Wednesday (European time). The move follows an earlier agreement for airberlin to place its
