Qantas Start Scenic Antartica Flights Today

Last night QANTAS sent an empty Boeing 747-438ER VH-OEH up from Sydney – Brisbane as QF6101 in preparation for an Antarctic Scenic Flight today.  Brisbane kicked off the annual scenic flights today, today's flight (using flight number 2904) was expected to depart at 7.30 am but left at 8.15 from runway 01.
Its track will take it down over Sydney, over Hobart then down to Antarctica when it will do many low level runs for a few hours before returning to Brisbane later this evening at around 9.30pm
The cost of a ticket ranges from "economy" $1,299 up to "ice class" $6,999
Qantas run these flights out of other cities and the departure dates are below.
Perth 26th Jan
Adelaide 8th Feb
Melbourne 15th Feb and 31st Dec

VH-OEH 747-438 (CN 32912)

Qantas 2904 leaving Australian airspace on her way to Antarctica

 

Worlds Newest Aircraft Enters Service

Qatar Airways flight QR 67 has marked the commercial debut of the Airbus A350.
The aircraft (registered A7-ALA) took off from Doha Airport at 08.10 local time on Thursday, landing at Frankfurt a little under six hours later at 12.06.
Qatar is the launch customer of the A350 and has 80 of the type on order. This Oneworld alliance member took delivery of the A350-900 on December 22 2014 and unveiled it to the world in front of about 500 invited guests and media at its Doha hub on January 8.
Since then, the aircraft has been put through it paces with a number of training flights. Qatar also flew A7-ALA to London for noise testing in the week leading up to the inaugural flight.
Qatar has fitted 36 fully flat business class seats, all with direct aisle access, as well as 247 economy seats in a 3-3-3 configuration in its A350-900.
Having taken delivery of the first A350 in late 2014, Qatar was expected to pick up the next four frames to come off the Airbus production line.
Finnair, which has 19 A350s on firm order, was scheduled to receive its first A350 in the second half of 2015. Skyteam carrier Vietnam Airlines was also due to receive the first its 10 A350-900s on order before the end of the year.
At December 31 2014, Airbus had booked 780 firm orders for the A350 – 18 for the smaller A350-800, 595 for the A350-900 and 169 for the stretched A350-1000 – from 40 customers.
(Source from Australian Aviation Magazine)

Friday Snaps

I was lucky enough to be working around the airport area today so I raced over at lunch time to grab the departure of the China Airlines 747 in their "Skyteam" livery. I then returned later that afternoon to grab a few arrivals before heading home.



B-18206 B747-409 (CN 29030) China 053 off to Auckland

ZK-OJM A320-232 (CN 2533) New Zealand  805 arriving from Christchurch

ZK-NCJ B767-319 ER (CN 26915) New Zealand 139 arriving from Auckland

P2-PXV B767-319ER (CN 30341) Niugini 5 arriving from Port Moresby

VH-XZP B737-838NG (CN 44577) Qantas 973 arriving from Townsville

9V-STD A330-343 (CN 997) Singapore 265 arriving from Singapore.
This flight is a summer time addition, it does not operate outside of the
Australian Summer



H4-BUS A320-211 (CN 302) Solomon 700 arriving from Honiara


 



Volcanic Eruption in Tonga strands Tourists

Travellers and holidaymakers have been left stranded after flights to and from Tonga were cancelled on Monday and again yesterday because of a huge volcanic ash cloud in the area.
Air New Zealand, Fiji Airways and Virgin flights have all been affected, including one from Auckland that had to be diverted to Samoa.
Tonga Airports chief executive Viliami Ma'ake said all flights to and from Australia, Fiji and New Zealand were cancelled until further notice because of the ash.
The volcano is about 63km north of  Nuku'alofa.
An alert has been issued by the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre in Wellington and NZ's Civil Aviation Authority is monitoring the situation.
Meteorological manager Peter Lechner said: "Looking at the advisory, they've still got an ash cloud extending from the southeast. From the ocean surface, the plume is up to 30,000 feet (9,144 mts) high."
Aircraft cannot fly through volcanic ash because it can severely damage the engine, erode the fuselage and windscreen and clog the fuel system.

Qantas's Last 767 Leaves Brisbane

The last 767-300ER (CN 25577) in the Qantas fleet departed Brisbane this morning at 6.15am from runway 01and arrived in Alice Springs right on 9am (8.30 Alice Time) landing on runway 12.

The only Qantas 767 left is OGL and that is sitting in Sydney awaiting its flight to Alice.

OGO landing in Alice Springs

Garuda Axe Brisbane - Bali Flights... AGAIN !!

It's now official and after much speculation I can confirm Garuda have officially announced that it will pull out of its direct flights to Bali from Brisbane commencing February 1st.

Just 18 months after re-launching its Brisbane to Bali direct flights in August 2013 Garuda has again scrapped the service without warning as it had done back in 2008.

 

PK-GFM B737-8U3 (CN 39920)

 

Emirates Triple Play for Brisbane

This afternoon Brisbane was treated to a very unusual Emirates triple play.
It appears last nights Emirates flight A6-EDP (CN 077) direct to Dubai went unserviceable after arriving from Auckland.
Passengers were either sent home or put up in a motel for the night. At 5.45pm tonight another Emirates A380 A6-EDM (CN 042) flying in directly from Dubai arrived to pick up the stranded passengers. Then 45 mins after that at 6.30pm the regular daily Emirates flight A6-EDO (CN 057) from Auckland arrived.
It was certainly exciting to see A380's on the ground at the same time.



A6-EDP



A6-EDM

A6-EDO

A6-EDM and A6-EDO