November 30, 2010 – 9:36 am
When I became a reporter, on this day in 1960, the great ocean liners still sailed regularly to Europe and North America, and was it possible to take a ship between most of the capital cities. But not for much longer. Some afternoons, when Sydney and Mary and Susanna, Malcolm, Jean, baby Fiona and I [...]
November 29, 2010 – 9:48 am
UPDATED on Tuesday, November 30, with detail and passion by ‘Morelle, a disgruntled traveller‘, before the photo. Ever get the feeling that Qantas struggles to be average. One of our frequently flying readers does. Friday night, arrive at Melbourne airport, go through security to QANTAS Club. It’s absolutely heaving. Manage to find an empty seat. [...]
November 28, 2010 – 12:41 pm
The Qantas group submission to the Senate Inquiry into pilot training and airline safety standards includes an attempt to airbrush away Jetstar’s efforts to avoid an ATSB inquiry into a botched attempt by the pilots of its one of its A320 to land in fog at Melbourne Airport on July 21, 2007. If the ATSB [...]
November 27, 2010 – 1:19 pm
There is something truly alarming about the major airline submissions to the impending Senate inquiry into pilot training and airline safety standards instigated by South Australian independent senator, Nick Xenophon. None of them invoke (or revive) the concept of exceptional excellence in piloting in Australian carriers. They endorse the notion that if an airline can [...]
November 26, 2010 – 9:24 am
There are some good reasons why Jetstar should reconsider its decision to sack a first officer for writing about the safety consequences of its pilot cost reduction program. They were outlined to me in a no notes, hours long meeting with Jetstar Group CEO Bruce Buchanan earlier this year, well before the Joe Eakins controversy [...]
November 26, 2010 – 12:07 am
The union that represents many Qantas and Jetstar pilots says it will fight the Qantas Group all the way up to the High Court over its dismissal of a Jetstar first officer, Joe Eakins for writing an article critical of the Jetstar’s cost cutting culture in terms of safety implications. The President of the Australian [...]
November 25, 2010 – 10:22 am
Boeing, in association with Air France, is reported as leading a broad inquiry into the safety of flight implications of very tiny high altitude ice crystals that has its genesis in the crash of the Airbus A330-200 operating AF 447 on June 1, 2009, into the mid Atlantic Ocean while flying between Rio de Janeiro [...]
November 24, 2010 – 3:00 pm
Will today’s ATSB report on gross incompetence in AirServices Australia lead to any action over the training and standards crisis in air traffic control in this country? Probably not. But the ATSB has produced a by-the-second account of how an inadequately trained and supervised air traffic controller failed to separate an Emirates Boeing 777 with [...]
November 23, 2010 – 4:55 pm
Judged by the transcript of a Qantas press conference held at short notice with no dial-in or look-on facility, it is clear that the airline’s CEO, Alan Joyce, now trusts Rolls-Royce more than he trusts their Trent 900 engines for long and lonely flights across the South Pacific. At this morning’s resumption of A380 flights [...]
November 23, 2010 – 11:00 am
Qantas will start reintroducing A380 flights from this Saturday, but has voluntarily decided not to trust their Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines at a higher thrust setting until further notice, which means keeping them off the trans Pacific routes to Los Angeles. It has released the following statement.
