X-Nico

29 unusual facts about QANTAS


Air data inertial reference unit

On 12 September 2006, Qantas Flight 68, Airbus A330 registration VH-QPA, from Hong Kong to Perth exhibited ADIRU problems but without causing any disruption to the flight.

Brooke Burfitt

Brooke Burfitt (aka Brooke Burfitt-Dons) is the daughter of Louise Burfitt-Dons who set up the children’s anti-bullying charity Act Against Bullying and Donald, a retired Qantas captain.

Bruce Munro

He moved to Australia in 1984, where he created a commercial design company providing advertising signage for corporate clients such as Qantas and Honda.

Caitlin Stasey

In 2000, at the age of 10, she travelled the world as a member of the Australian Girls Choir, and took part in a re-recording of Peter Allen's "I Still Call Australia Home", for a Qantas commercial.

Carter Brown

He began his working life as a film technician, a salesman and in public relations for Qantas before taking up writing full-time.

Chicka Dixon

Qantas would not fly the group, so Dixon found an airline that would.

Daly Waters, Northern Territory

Daly Waters Airfield was a centre for the London to Sydney air race of 1926, a refuelling stop for early Qantas flights to Singapore, a World War II Airforce base and more recently an operational base for joint military manoeuvres.

David A. N. Epstein

Epstein was appointed Group Executive for Government and Corporate Affairs at Qantas Airways Limited in 2008, and served on the Qantas Executive Committee.

Dentally Disturbed

Qantas In-flight Entertainment programme, Licensing deal

Éric Cyr

Cyr was seated next to Rogers on Qantas Flight 25, and according to Rogers, he passed her a note saying "what's up sexy, you are very cut (sic) it is bad that you are 15 the law is very strick (sic) about that kind of stuff but I may have to do an execption (sic) this time ..." Rogers claimed that Cyr subsequently "tricked" her into meeting him in one of the airplane's lavatories, where they engaged in sex for approximately thirty minutes.

Fire! Santa Rosa, Fire!

Throughout 2009, the band played shows supporting the likes of Sia Furler, The Bumblebeez and Bertie Blackman, and were shortlisted as one of the ten finalists for the Qantas Spirit of Youth award.

Future Air Navigation System

United Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Qantas, and Air New Zealand approached the Boeing Company in 1993 and requested that Boeing support the development of a FANS capability for the 747-400 airplane.

Gaby Kennard

Qantas has recently announced that they will be naming one of their Airbus A380's after Gaby Kennard in recognition of her contribution to the aviation industry and particularly of her achievement.

Geoff Dixon

Geoff Dixon (born 1939, in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia) is an Australian corporate executive and former CEO and Managing Director of Qantas.

Insolia

Early in 2005, Insolia reported that Qantas, a major Australian airline, had chosen shoes containing the Insolia component as necessary footwear for its 7,000 flight attendants.

Jonathan Dawson

Dawson continued to work as a writer director, primarily on commercials for clients like Qantas, Nestle, Volvo, as well as for many government election campaigns, creating a new style of "presidential" launch for the Federal Labor Party's successful national campaigns in 1983 and 1985 as well as directing TV commercials for Premier Neville Wran in New South Wales.

Luca Zordan

There have been several exhibitions of the photos from the book, including one at Pacific Place in Hong Kong in June 2009 sponsored by the Australian government, Qantas, Grand Hyatt, and the Swire Group.

Milan Hudecek

He is a Member of the Order of Australia, winner of the Winston Gordon Award for Technological Advancement in the Field of Blindness and Visual Impairment, and Rolls-Royce & Qantas Award of Engineering Excellence.

Mobile phones on aircraft

As of mid April 2007 Qantas teamed up with Panasonic Avionics Corporation and AeroMobile to commence a three-month trial that would "enable customers to send and receive e-mails, access the Internet and send and receive text messages from their own mobile phone".

Moree, New South Wales

The town is served by the daily NSW TrainLink Xplorer train service to Sydney as well as regular Qantas airline services, as well as the recent addition of Brindabella airlines, connecting Moree to Brisbane twice weekly.

Nhulunbuy

James Strong, who went on to be the CEO of Qantas, lived in the town at one stage when he was the head of the mine and port operations.

No. 41 Squadron RNZAF

Weekly return flights were made until April 1948 when chartered Qantas aircraft took on the task.

Short Empire

Imperial Airways (and its successor BOAC), Qantas and TEAL operated the Short Empire in commercial service, while the Royal Air Force, Royal Australian Air Force, Royal New Zealand Air Force and briefly the Royal Canadian Air Force used them on military operations during the Second World War, particularly for anti-submarine patrol and transport duties.

Slowdown

In July 2011, Qantas engineers introduced an unusual slowdown where right-handed engineers used only their left hands to operate essential tools.

SmartGate

Trials of the SmartGate system in conjunction with the biometric passport technology were expanded in late 2004 from use with Qantas air-crew (which began in 2002), to include over 1,000 Qantas platinum frequent flyers.

Steele Retchless

After finishing that season as a leading contender for the Qantas Player of the Year, Retchless played a season for Easts Tigers in 2006.

Suncorp Place

It was designed for Qantas by Joseland & Gilling architects, and was completed in 1982.

Tiger Airways Holdings

On 9 February 2007, Tigerair formally announced that it hoped to become Australia's third full-scale domestic airline, competing directly with Virgin Australia and Qantas/Jetstar.

Trevor Kennedy

Trevor Kennedy is an Australian businessman, who has served on the board of directors of many Australian companies, including Consolidated Press Holdings and Qantas.


1999 Australian Grand Prix

The 1999 Australian Grand Prix (formally the LXIV Qantas Australian Grand Prix) was a Formula One motor race held on 7 March 1999 at the Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit in Albert Park, Melbourne, Australia.

Airline Partners Australia

The consortium, comprising Texas Pacific Group, Macquarie Bank, Allco Finance Group, Allco Equity Partners and Onex Corporation, was structured to comply with strict Australian ownership laws for Qantas (which must be at least 51% owned by Australians).

Allco Finance Group

In its most visible public transaction Allco was a part of Airline Partners Australia, the consortium that unsuccessfully attempted to buy Qantas.

Avro 547

Despite this, Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services (QANTAS) bought the first prototype in November 1920 for GBP 2,798 with the intention of using it on a route between Charleville and Katherine.

Christine Nixon

Nixon was criticised when she joined her husband, John Becquet, a former Qantas senior executive of crew operations, on the inaugural international flight of Qantas' Airbus A380 airliner from Melbourne to Los Angeles, as guests of Qantas in an all expenses paid, three day trip.

De Havilland Fox Moth

QANTAS used Fox Moths to replace de Havilland DH.50s on the Flying Doctor Service.

Geoff Hutchison

Following Liam Bartlett's defection to commercial radio in early 2006, Hutchison used Qantas back to Perth and took up the position as host of 720 ABC's Morning show.

Great Western Railway, Queensland

The idea of linking the western extremities of the QR lines was fulfilled when the Australian government contracted Qantas to provide air mail services linking Charleville, Blackall, Longreach, Winton and Cloncurry in 1922.

Hobart International Airport

The major domestic airlines that serve the airport are Qantas, Jetstar Airways, Virgin Australia and Tiger Airways Australia, which are all running flights on the main route to Melbourne Airport.

James Edward Davidson

He and his two passengers, A.W.N. Bell and W.R. Donaldson, were killed when the Qantas plane (Airco DH.9C G-AUED) he was attempting to land at Tambo, Queensland stalled, crashed, and was totally destroyed.

Jetconnect

In June 2011 the ABC program Hungry Beast produced a parody television advertisement for Qantas, highlighting the use of Jetconnect for its trans-Tasman flights.

Knez Mihailova Street

Furthermore, the representative offices of various airlines such as Aeroflot, FlyDubai, Emirates Airline, Qantas, Turkish Airlines and Air France are located in Knez Mihailova.

Longreach, Queensland

All of the Qantas Boeing 747-400's have "Longreach" printed on both sides of the first jetway entry/exit doors.

The town is now the home of the Qantas Founders Outback Museum, which includes amongst its displays a decommissioned Qantas Boeing 747-200 aircraft, registration VH-EBQ, "The City of Bunbury." and QANTAS's first jet aircraft VH-XBA (formerly VH-EBA), a Boeing 707, "The City of Canberra.".

Methodist Ladies' College, Melbourne

The board at the time of Storelli's sacking consisted of Louise Adler (Melbourne University Press), Brendan Fleiter (Australia Post), Ahmed Fahour (Australia Post), Tony Peake (PricewaterhouseCoopers), Bernard Salt (KPMG), Patricia Cross (NAB, JB Were, Qantas), Patrick Ng (Architect), Belinda Probert (LaTrobe University) and Julie Landvogt (education consultant).

New South Wales 442 class locomotive

They were nicknamed Jumbos, their 1971 delivery coinciding with that of Qantas' first Boeing 747s.

Nhulunbuy

Geoff Dixon, Strong's successor at Qantas, was also an employee.

No. 33 Squadron RAAF

Its attempts to procure one Boeing 727 each from domestic carriers Ansett and TAA were unsuccessful but, in December, Qantas agreed to sell the government two Boeing 707s for $14.5 million.

Palmietfontein Airport

A Qantas Airways Avro Lancastrian completed an unprecedented flight from Sydney's Kingsford Smith Airport in Australia to Palmietfontein, landing on 20 November 1948 at 15h15, and having been in the air a total of 41 hours and 52 minutes at an average speed of 210 miles per hour.

Qantas Flight 72

Qantas Flight 72 (QF72) was a scheduled flight from Singapore Changi Airport to Perth Airport on 7 October 2008 that made an emergency landing at Learmonth airport near the town of Exmouth, Western Australia following an inflight accident featuring a pair of sudden uncommanded pitch-down manoeuvres that resulted in serious injuries to many of the occupants.

Qantas Freight

Qantas Freight was also a partner in two joint ventures with Australia Post: Australian air Express, specialising in door-to-door package delivery, and Star Track Express, a road freight company.

Reg Ansett

Qantas has named one of their Airbus A380s after Ansett in recognition of his contribution to the aviation industry.

Star Track Express

Qantas sold their stake in StarTrack to Australia Post on 2 October 2012, with Qantas buying Australia Post's stake in Australian Air Express.

TEAL

In April 1961 the Australian government decided to support the wholly Australian-owned Qantas airline and the New Zealand government bought out the Australian government's shareholding, giving New Zealand 100% ownership.

Trevor Kennedy

He resigned from his position as director of seven public companies, including Qantas amid his house being searched by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission in regard to shareholdings in the company Offset Alpine Printing.