Etihad Airways has received approval to double its stake in Virgin Australia’s domestic business to 10 per cent despite heavy lobbying against the deal by rival Qantas. In a statement today, the UAE flag carrier said its bid to increase its stake in Virgin from 4.99 per cent had been approved by Australian’s Foreign Investment
Qantas will launch its iPad-based ‘QStreaming’ in-flight entertainment system on its east coast fleet of Boeing 767s starting later this year. The system, which allows passengers to access more than 200 hours of free movies, TV shows and other content via a Qantas-provided tablet, will hit the first of the airline’s 767s in the fourth
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 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 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
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
