Jaunted

Tags: Prime-Plane-Spotting-Map / Plane Spotting / Australia Travel / Qantas / Sydney Travel / → All Tags

Take a Dip at This Beach Down Under for the Best Plane Spotting

Headed down under? While it's the thick of winter in our hemisphere, they've got the sun of summer coming down on beaches like the ones at Botany Bay, which happen to be positioned within awesome viewing proximity to the jet action at Sydney's Kingsford-Smith Airport.

Pack your camera, swimsuit and towel and head to the following prime spots to catch A380s landing and taking off, and a whole slew of Qantas planes. After the jump!

more ›

Tags: Best Job in the World / Ben Southall / Australia Travel / Hamilton Island / Tourism Queensland / → All Tags

The 'Best Job In The World' Winds Down But Another Awesome Job Begins

While most of us are busy packing up our holiday presents and preparing to head through increased airport security to head home, another traveler is especially sad to see the holiday season come to an end. Our lucky pal Ben Southall, who won Tourism Queensland's Best Job In The World earlier this year, is finally coming off the payroll, but only for a little bit, because apparently he did well on his annual performance review. We probably would too if we needed to excel at blogging, photographing, swimming, and being on vacation for much of 2009.

After a visit from Santa and his parents for the holidays—we hope he got a new snorkel—he’ll be heading out from paradise to promote his former island home around the world. His new job will be to tell everyone how great Queensland and Hamilton Island are, but he will have to do it away from the sun and the sand.

more ›

Tags: Travel Hell / Jetstar / Airline News / → All Tags

Jetstar Says 'No Flight For You' To Blind Couple With Guide Dog

Here’s a not so good story if you’re in charge of marketing or PR for Jetstar. Apparently a blind couple was attempting to board a flight to get out of Melbourne—hopefully en route to somewhere fun—but they weren’t allowed on the plane because of their guide dog. The airline’s policy states that’s it’s totally fine to bring service dogs on the flight; however, the agent wasn’t too familiar with this.

The couple reached the check-in area at the airport, but weren’t offered too many solutions. The agent at the desk just shouted “no dogs, no dogs, no dogs,” which doesn’t sound like a response right out of the customer service manual.

Eventually the couple took a flight on another airline and finally did get an apology from Jetstar. They also got a couple of free flights, but we’re thinking the couple will be a little hesitant to try out Jetstar again in the future. Maybe they can call ahead to get the all clear for their furry friend helper.

more ›

Tags: Qantas / Airline News / First Class Travel / → All Tags

Changes At Qantas: Less Fancy Seats, But No Annoying Check-In

Qantas is not standing still: even with Christmas fast approaching, they're full of big plans and promises. First up, they're cutting the number of business and first class seats on long haul flights because they think the slump in demand is here to stay, and they can save a pack of money that way. Since we don't usually get to fly those classes for that distance (though we'd like to), that doesn't bother us too much.

The next big Qantas plan sounds like something that is either very ambitious, or has already been done before—we can't figure out which. It's all about automating check-in, and therefore making it twice as fast, at least. They're spending A$40 million on a deal with IBM to get the first phase of the new system rolled out in Australian airports through 2010 and 2011, starting in Perth.

more ›

Tags: Christmas Alternatives / Sydney Travel / Australia Travel / New Years Travel / Holiday Travel / Travel Deals / → All Tags

We're Dreaming Of A White (Sand) Christmas Down Under

Think a white, sandy Christmas might be better than a white snowy one? All you northern hemisphere people can be guaranteed a very different experience if you decide to celebrate Christmas in Australia, where temperatures can easily reach over the century mark and a swim at the beach is way more likely than a snowball fight.

The nice thing is that it's not even too late, if you decide skipping the drag of family festivities is what you want. There are still plenty of packages available to get you Down Under for a few days around Christmas time, including heaps of lastminute.com travel packages from LAX to Sydney, including airfare and accommodation for a week for around $2,000 for a five-night stay.

more ›

Tags: Airline Safety / Qantas / Airline Hell / Airline News / → All Tags

Qantas Blames 'Cosmic Rays' For Last Year's Roller Coaster-Like Flight

We have a pretty decent respect for Aussie airline Qantas, with its better-than-average safety record and generally trouble-free flights (of course, we're not impressed by the recent beer ban on some flights, but it probably was in the name of safety, so who are we to complain). And now we can feel a little better about last year's mid-air drama over Western Australia, because investigators are blaming cosmic rays.

You might vaguely remember that in October last year, a Qantas flight from Singapore made an emergency landing after some rollercoaster action: it suddenly plunged 650 feet, got back up again then fell 400 feet. This led to some serious passenger injuries (no deaths, though) and a whole lot of serious questions. At the time, a lot of people were blaming passengers using laptops and other electronic devices.

more ›

Tags: Airport Check-In / Airline News / Airport News / Airports / Qantas / Australia Travel / → All Tags

Frequent Flyers On Qantas Can Simply Swipe And Fly In 2010

With the rise of LCC (low cost carrier) airlines and their love affair with new technology, it seems like the airport check-in process is becoming the least time-consuming and easiest portion of catching a flight. There's the touchscreen kiosks, dedicated bag drop counters, and even the ability to check-in and print your boarding pass online.

In Australia however, Qantas is still the gold standard, and luckily they're just as into updating the check-in process as we are. Focusing on cutting check-in time for their domestic passengers in half, Qantas is rehauling their system with the "next generation of check-in."

What that means for you Qantas flyers out there.

more ›

Tags: Best Job in the World / Ben Southall / Australia Travel / Hamilton Island / Tourism Queensland / → All Tags

Is Queensland's 'Best Job In The World' Really The Worst?

The now very-well-known tourist board campaign which recruited Ben Southall for the Best Job in the World—experiencing and blogging about life on the paradise of Hamilton Island in Queensland, Australia—apparently earned the state about $360 million worth of publicity (not bad for a $2.2 million outlay). Now that everyone knows that Queensland is a great place to go thanks to Ben's twitter pictures and blogs, there's one big problem: nobody's going.

Despite the massive interest in Queensland, international tourist numbers dropped by almost 8% over the last year, and almost 14% fewer international business visitors arrived. Of course, the global economic crisis can probably take a fair bit of the blame for that, but Queensland is still worried.

more ›

Tags: Food Travel / Australia Travel / Lists / → All Tags

The Top Five Aussie Foods To Try Down Under

Being a country mostly made up of immigrants, Australia is not renowned for having its own incredible foods the way, say, somewhere like Italy is. But that doesn't mean that there aren't some very important Aussie foods to try on your trip Down Under. Okay okay, so everyone's knows (and possibly sticks their nose up at) Vegemite, but you can't deny it when in the country; you've got to try it.

And without further ado, we present the list of The Top Five Aussie Foods To Try Down Under:

more ›

Tags: Airplane Hell / John Mayer / Qantas / Australia Travel / Twitter / → All Tags

Qantas Has Issues And John Mayer Tweets Them

The flying kangaroo, AKA Qantas, has got problems. As if banning beer on some flights wasn't bad enough, the planes and the pilots have been misbehaving too.

Last week, there was the case of the pilots who forgot to put the landing gear down on their way into Sydney, forcing the pilots to abort the landing and go again later. Those pilots have now been suspended although the lack of landing gear is being put down to a "brief communications breakdown" by Qantas.

more ›

Tags: Celeb Travel / Britney Spears / V Australia / Music Travel / → All Tags

Britney Spears Is A Virgin Girl For Her Australia Tour

Boy oh boy, it's been awhile since Britney Spears did anything notable, let alone something travel-related, but last week she flew right back onto the scene and it was on a V Australia plane. BritBrit is currently playing to somewhat sold-out crowds around Australia on the Down Under portion of her "Circus" tour, and V Australia was chosen as the official airline partner of the tour.

What does that mean? Well, first it meant that Britney and all of her dancers, band, set designers, tech people and assorted crew headed to Oz on a V Australia plane on November 3. About that flight, Britney tweeted: "Longest flight ever but we had a great time. Really cool plane and the V staff took great care of us. So excited to be here!" She wrapped up the first concerts in Perth over the weekend, and now she'll be flying on Virgin Blue to upcoming dates in Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Melbourne.

more ›

Tags: Qantas / Australia Travel / Beer Travel / Drinking Travel / In-Flight Drinks / → All Tags

Beer Ban On Select Qantas Flights Is Un-Australian

Aussies are definitely not impervious to the charms of a cold can of Fosters; after all, they do have record-breaking pub crawls and boats made of beer cans. But if you're flying on a domestic Qantas flight Down Under, there are a few less beers going round these days.

Citing unruly behavior, mostly from drunken mine workers heading home after a couple of weeks working in the desert, Qantas has banned full strength beer and spirits on all flights within Western Australia. This follows existing bans on sales of spirits on intrastate flights in other parts of Australia.

more ›