Qantas will cancel firm orders for 35 Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners after posting a worse than expected $244 million statutory loss last financial year. The loss, a nearly half-billion dollar swing from the previous year’s $250 million profit, was blamed on high fuel prices, the cost of Qantas’ industrial dispute and intense competition. Qantas posted pre-tax
Qantas has stood down two pilots after the pair reportedly got into a heated argument in the cockpit of a Boeing 747 on the tarmac in Dallas. According to reports, the captain and second officer came to loggerheads over takeoff calculations as the jet waited out a thunderstorm ahead of a flight to Sydney via
Qantas will refurbish 16 of its 23 Boeing 767 aircraft with new interiors and IPad-based entertainment systems while phasing out the remaining seven. The surviving jets, used mostly on east coast domestic routes, will get new-look cabins featuring a ‘contemporary design,’ leather seat covers in business class and new carpets, lighting, curtains and dividers. The
Etihad Airways has purchased more than $10 million worth of Virgin Australia shares in the past three weeks as it increases its stake in its alliance partner. The Abu Dhabi based carrier earlier won approval from the Foreign Investment Review Board to increase its stake in Virgin Australia form five to 10 per cent. The
Australian supermodel Miranda Kerr will star in a new advertising push for Qantas Club airport lounges. Principally, Ms Kerr is meant to lure a younger generation of flyers away from Qantas’s more youthful rival, Virgin Australia, which has unveiled its own franchise of airport lounges after making an aggressive entrance into the corporate travel market
Alan Joyce will forgo any bonus or pay rise this year, the Qantas CEO has said days before he is expected to announce the airline’s first annual loss. Joyce will earn his base pay of $2.3 million but will give up the bonuses that last year brought his compensation to roughly $5 million. He joins
