Another Qantas Cityflyer route is being munched on by Tiger, reports Ben Sandilands: this time, it’s the Melbourne to Brisbane route, with the low-fare airline offering flights up to three times daily from 28 March.
Aviation industry 
Sydney/Melbourne by plane or bust: Airbus vision kills the fast train
The notion of a Very Fast Train for the Melbourne-Sydney corridor has been shot down by new plans from Airbus to fly Very Large Planes between the two cities, because the entire cost, and risk, is funded by the privately owned airlines and airports.
Qantas 767 aborts 700 feet above tarmac and wheels up
Last week, just 700 feet from landing, Qantas pilots were forced to abort a landing when it was realised that the wheels had not been lowered. It was a close call for a Qantas and the Boeing 767 is to be investigated,.
Safety screwed over wrong washer
The aircraft engineers union is pursuing claims that Qantas avoided a detailed safety investigation of a 747 last year, which could have caused some of its engines to fall off in flight.
Has British Airways lost its number 1 UK spot?
The classic British aviation brand British Airways may soon lose its title as the UK’s most popular airline as budget airline Ryanair grows its flights and passengers. But will Ryanair be able to continue its double digit growth?
Qantas flies underwater for the first quarter
Qantas group operational statistics for September confirm that the airline has been flying at a loss for the first quarter of this financial year — just how deep the total group loss will be depends largely on the success of its sales of “loyalty” frequent flyer points.
Tiger bares its teeth at Cityflyer
Low fare airline Tiger Airways continues its assault on Qantas’ Cityflyer operation with the announcement of even more Sydney flights, says Ben Sandilands. Yep: not low fare Jetstar, nor middle market Virgin Blue, but high fare Qantas. Grr.
Memo CASA chief: an uncritical media is not your friend
The underlying managerial culture of modern enterprises is to push productivity to within a millimetre of breaking the people or the equipment, and to lift output year in year out. Unfortunately in the airline game, that can kill hundreds of people at once.
Crikey Clarifier: The JSF project … the J is for ‘joke’
The JSF or Joint Strike Fighter is a massively hyped, much-delayed defence project by which a single type of jet will supposedly defend the US and its allies from baddies. Think of a super duper X-box with wings. It has got everything. Or has it? asks Ben Sandilands.
Time for Tiger Airways to stop pussy-footing around compensation
There is no justification for Tiger Airways taking up to two months to compensate hundreds of passengers for the expenses they had to meet after being stranded in Hobart for three days last week, says Ben Sandilands
Singapore Airlines tries to get a grip
Singapore Airlines is claiming to be acting for everyone, not just itself, by encouraging travellers to buy cheap fares to European cities.
AF447 crash: Air France traps itself with leaked memo
The latest response by Air France management to the June crash of flight AF447 is a joke, says Ben Sandilands: a “strongly worded” memo telling pilots to be “more vigilant” about safety procedures.
Qantas report stands like a beacon of poor corporate governance
The Qantas 2009 Remuneration Report stands out like a beacon of poor corporate governance. That a majority of institutional shareholders could actually vote in favour of the resolution makes you wonder: exactly who is watching the watchers?
Virgin’s wheel of fire at the hub of wider problems
Virgin Blue lawyers are crawling over the words of aircraft engineers union federal secretary Steve Purvinas like ants over road kill this morning, but what is really going on?
US lawyer sues Airbus (and everyone else) over Air France disaster
A US lawyer is suing everyone who made anything that was part of the Air France Airbus flight that crashed into the mid Atlantic in June, reports Ben Sandilands.
Chilling out on Jetstar: cash grab or coincidence?
Flying Jetstar? Pack a pashima, because if one Crikey reader’s complaint is correct, they may try and freeze the loose change out of your pockets.
Harsh US airline penalties highlight lack of them here
Aviation safety regulation in this country is incompetent and ethically corrupt, and significant ministerial oversight hasn’t existed for at least 50 years.
Cathay Pacific’s September stats show signs of recovery
Cathay Pacific’s September operating stats show real signs that stronger regional economic activity is reviving business travel and the export of high value consumer goods and components by air freight, says Ben Sandilands.
Questions by the plane load for Qantas AGM
The most urgent question for shareholders at next week’s Qantas AGM in Perth isn’t the lavish reward to former CEO Geoff Dixon, but whether the group’s toxic management culture will destroy his replacement Alan Joyce and cripple the carrier.
Qantas: The chance for answers goes west
Qantas shareholders meet next week in faraway Perth — well away from where the majority of shareholders actually live. What is Qantas hiding from?
AF447 disaster: was the radar really working?
There is one strange but not necessarily consequential omission in the official interim report into the June’s Air France disaster, says Ben Sandilands: nowhere does it confirm that the weather radar was switched on.
In tourism, even libel can be a world away
Libel tourism has been catapulted into the headlines after aviation writer Joe Sharkey was served a writ for defamatory statements he says he didn’t make in Brazil after surviving a mid-air collision in 2006.
The tragedy of Boeing’s demise
In many respects, Boeing is a metaphor for failed corporations, and the wider failings of modern US business managements to engage with the realities of design and production.
Can Boeing really build jets anymore?
Barely a week after Boeing was bragging to the media about its amazing new plane, the 747-8, it has announced it won’t even be flying this year, and will take a US$1 billion hit because of problems with the project. What a joke, says Ben Sandilands.
Pilots challenge Air France with their AF 447 crash ‘truth’
Two Air France pilots have challenged Airbus and the French air crash investigators to face up to critical factors in the June 1 crash of flight AF447 in the mid-Atlantic, which killed all 228 people on board.
