Qantas Airlines: Flagship Carrier For Australia

Monday, July 12th, 2010 | Airline Travel

The national airlines of Australia is Qantas. Maintaining its main hub at Sydney International Airport, Quantas also has smaller hubs at Melbourne, Perth, and Brisbane. It runs international flights into Brisbane, Perth, Singapore, London, and Los Angeles.

The world’s second oldest airlines in continuous operation and the oldest airline in the English-speaking world, Quantas was founded in 1920. It is a member of the Oneworld alliance, one of the world’s largest airline alliance programs.

Qantas is both privately held and of the world’s very most profitable airlines. Voted third best in the world by the World Airline Awards in 2008, Qantas and its subsidiaries maintain hundreds of Boeing and Airbus planes, naming each after Australian aviators, Australian cities, Australian cities, Greek gods and goddesses, and stars.

The name Qantas, always spelled without a “u,” is an acronym for “Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services.”

Adventure travelers seeking to tour Antarctica can fly on Qantas charters booked by Croydon Travel. Qantas flew its first tours of Antarctica in 1977. These tours were suspended in 1979 after the disastrous crash of Air New Zealand Flight 901 on Mt. Erebus, but were restarted the summer of 1994. Qantas ensures that all its Antarctic flight crews have had extensive training in polar operations and know what to do in whiteouts, such as those that contributed to the 1979 Air New Zealand disaster.

Qantas rewards frequent fliers with points based on distance flown, with additional points for travel in first and business class. Miles may be earned and spent on both Qantas and Oneworld alliance carriers. Following criticism of its rewards program in 2008 over the unavailability of reward seats, Qantas introduced Any Seat rewards, allowing members to pay for any seat on a flight, and Points Plus Pay, allowing members to qualify for travel with a combination of points and cash payments.

The first airline to allow cell phone use during flights, Qantas also provides seat-back access to email and web browsing and wireless internet. It also offers an extensive in-flight entertainment system. Some planes use Mainscreen, where drop-down video menus offer either television programs or recent films, depending on the length of the flight. Other planes use Total Entertainment, which is an on-demand audio/video system.

Quantas has recently announced a program to offset its carbon emissions. The program encourages passengers to fly carbon-neutral, and allows them to pay for their offsets in either frequent flier points of cash. Qantas donates program proceeds to government-certified carbon offset projects with a Greenhouse Friendly authentication. Professional golfer Greg Norman and Olympic swimmer Ian Thorpe are representatives for the program.


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