What would you consider to be the ten best views from the air? British Airways asked their pilots who fly 180 routes globally to nominate their top ten: Northern Lights- I’d love to see them! Central London – Approach into Heathrow (I wonder how much that is about BA pilots coming home?) Mont Blanc – Pisa Sydney Harbour – on departure from Sydney, Australia Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz and bay – San Francisco Greenland – North Atlantic flights Venetian canals – Venice, Italy Cape Town, Table Mountain, South Africa Dubrovnik, Croatia Mount Fuji The survey…
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Qantas -My 1001st flight
Bravo to Qantas for recognising my 1001st time in the air! (it was also my 292nd second flight with the Aussie airline) and my third time on this particular aircraft an Airbus 330 (VH-QPF) named Esperance (after a town in Western Australia). I had last flown this plane back in March. Booking: 9/10 I was prompted to book by the announcement of a Qantas fare sale to Bangkok. In an unusual deviation from pattern, I only checked one fare comparison site kayak. I had almost hit “confirm” on the Qantas website which would charge my card and finalise…
Qantas Freq Flyer “Re-Graded”
Qantas Airways have announced some significant changes to their ten million member Frequent Flyer program to take effect 1 July, 2014. Like many other airlines in the world, Qantas will give more points to those who spend more money. Domestic Points Earning Rates Change On Australian domestic flights, points will be awarded at different rates depending on whether a flight is: Discount Economy Flexible Economy Business Flexible Business. The losers: those flying discount economy short haul fares within Australia e.g. Sydney to Melbourne, Sydney to Canberra and Canberra to Melbourne. From July 1st, the guaranteed minimum number of points a passenger…
An Empty Qantas Bangkok to Sydney
This has happened four times in 991 flights -a plane so empty, l score four seats in Economy to myself allowing me a stretch and a good sleep Not sure where the passengers were? Normally this is a very full flight. Scared off by the troubles in Thailand? Flying Jetstar, Emirates or Air Asia instead? Check in: 7 out of 10 After a frustrating time trying to do this on my phone, I gave up and waited until I had laptop access. This has got to be made possible using the Qantas mobile site…
Aussie Capital Captivates
What is the Capital of Australia? a) Auckland b) Melbourne c) Canberra d) Sydney An unusual aspect of the Australian constitution is that it specified a brand new capital was to be created. The result was Australia’s largest inland city: Canberra. That’s right folks: the capital of Australia is not Sydney! After searching for a site for a city, the surveyors and politicians determined that one of the coldest places in Australia was perfect for the new capital because “<;The history of the world shows that cold climates have produced the greatest geniuses..Not sure how…
Qantas 250th time
I flew my 250th Qantas flight, last week, from Sydney to Melbourne, Australia. It was also my 860th flight of my life! Five weeks of my life spent inside Qantas planes travelling the equivalent of 16 times around the world! As you can see from the map below, the Australian flag carrier has taken me to five continents. What is interesting is how many of the Qantas routes I have flown on have now vanished: Harare to Perth, Bangkok to London, Sydney to San Francisco, Christchurch to Melbourne, and Auckland to Los Angeles are all gone. I have…
Qantas gets back Nancy
April 21 saw the formal handing back to Qantas of their Airbus 380 named Nancy Bird Walton. This is the plane that dramatically “lost an engine” in a mid-air blast off Singapore in November 2010. I have previously blogged about how dangerous the incident was.. The incident dented both the reputation of Qantas as one of the world’s safest airlines (despite the fact the crew managed to nurse the plane into a safe landing) and the reputation of the giant plane. (The concerns some have about the 380 have been further heightened by hysteria over the wing cracks that have been found recently. Qantas is denying they are considering suing Airbus over the cracks but they are in…
This Week: 19th to 25th March
I fly from New York to Melbourne via Los Angeles and Sydney (United and Qantas with a sector on my beloved 380!) bringing my flights for the year to 25 from 22 airports in 9 countries on 4 continents with 10 airlines! So much for flying less in 2012! On my Qantas flight to Sydney, my total miles will exceed 1, 200 000 air miles flown in my life (five times between earth and moon) and a scarey 17 weeks inside planes! Check out myFlightmemory for more information. Home briefly before heading to Perth, Western Australia (flight 26 for…
Five Flights in one week of 2012
I have already flown five times this New Year! All flights but one with Virgin Australia Business class around Australia! Thank you Velocity Frequent Flyer seats! So much for less flying in 2012. The exception was an Air Australia economy flight- check out my Trip Report on them – coming up Tuesday 10th.
2011 Flying Highlights
I am Wild about Flying and thanks to my friend Tony (see separate story), I have a very accurate record of my travel. This means I know for a certainty, that as at today’s date I have flown 812 times in my life- 111 times in 2011. Question: Do I need to fly 112 times next year? 111 times in a year is about twice per week. In total a scary 412 hours of my year was spent in aeroplanes- two and a half weeks!! Distance Flown I travelled 304 560 km (189 245 miles). That number is…
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