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Tags: Tiger Airways / Seats / Airlines / Airline News / Seating / Airplane Seats / Qantas / Jetstar / → All Tags

Tiger Airways Also Considering Pee Fees and Stand-up Airplane Seats

Until an airline actually goes through with it, we are going to be continually reminded that stand-up seating is a pending possibility. Ryanair started things off, but now there’s another airline that might just want to get a little attention with it as well. Tiger Airways is also thinking about bringing a bit of in-flight discomfort to the masses.

The airline stated that they’d consider the possibility of stand-up seating in order to pass on lower fares to their customers. Just like their pals over at Ryanair, Tiger Airways would also think about installing those infamous coin-operated toilets. Apparently the airline is all about anything that can make flying cheaper for the flying public.

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Tags: Airport Lounges / Photo Gallery / Qantas / First Class Travel / SYD / Sydney Travel / Airports / → All Tags

Inside the Qantas First Lounge at Sydney Airport

As we continue our Airport Lounges Series, we bring you an inside look at Qantas’s much ballyhooed First Class Lounge at the Sydney Airport.

Not only is the luxury oasis a sprawling complex of comfort with two deluxe snack bars, a restaurant helmed by one of Australia’s most famous chefs, and a spa with complimentary treatments designed to ease the stress of long-haul air travel, but the place is also just plain cool to hang out in thanks to its design by Australia’s golden boy designer, Marc Newson, who’s also responsible for the streamlined look of Qantas’ new A380’s.

On our way back from Sydney to Los Angeles last week, we got the chance to go inside the First Lounge and take a look around. Then we made ourselves comfortable, tried out a spa treatment, ordered practically everything on the restaurant menu, tasted all the Australian wines, and played around on the lounge’s free wifi. Yeah, we were a little early. So what? We did it all for you, and we’ve even got a photo gallery to prove it, as well as a video walk-through.

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Tags: Airline Fees / Qantas / Seating / In-Flight Comfort / Flight Reviews / → All Tags

Our Qantas Experiment to Discover if Exit Rows are Worth Paying For

In years gone by, when flying Qantas to Australia, we were able to get exit-row seats without even asking. We presume our AA Gold status had something to do with it, or maybe just plain old good luck. But after a couple of years of no trans-Pacific flights our Gold status vanished, taking the promise of an exit-row seat with it.

So the dilemma we faced when booking our recent QF flight from JFK to Brisbane was: Is an exit-row seat worth the AUD$160 per-leg fee?

Number crunching:
That’s per leg between the U.S. and Australia—the JFK to LAX leg is AUD$80 per leg. So all together, we were looking at an extra AUD$480 or around USD$414. Which is not as much as the extra you’d pay for Premium Economy, but still not insignificant. Since this flight was one of the cheapest we’ve ever booked to Australia—USD$1,255 round-trip, including taxes—we decided to splurge on the exit-row. (The Premium Economy fare for the same trip would have been in the AUD$3,000 r/t range.)

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Tags: Jaunted Interviews / Alan Joyce / Qantas / Australia Travel / A380 / Airplane News / → All Tags

Qantas' CEO Alan Joyce Raves to US About Their A380s

A funny story for you: while we were at the Australian Tourism Exchange (ATE) in Adelaide last week, we had a chance to talk with Qantas CEO Alan Joyce regarding the airline's decision to invest in so many new A380’s, along with what new services Qantas passengers can look forward to soon. We also didn't neglect to inquire about just what makes those first class “suites” (don’t call them seats) so darn expensive!

Though he runs an airline that is practically synonymous with Australia, Joyce is actually an Irishman, and he appeared at ATE, Australia’s major annual travel convention, to make two major announcements in his charming native brogue. Here there are:

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Tags: AirNZ SkyCouch / Airplane Seats / SkyCouch / In-Flight Comfort / Air New Zealand / Qantas / Airline News / Airlines / → All Tags

The Ultimate Guide to Air New Zealand's New 'SkyCouch' Seats

The official Air New Zealand shot of two yuppies on the SkyCouch

We’ve been eagerly anticipating the Stateside unveiling of Air New Zealand’s new SkyCouch for months now since the Kiwis got a first look way back in January, and last night, we got the chance to check out the divine divans for ourselves at the company’s headquarters by LAX.

Born out of a desire to “revolutionize the way people at the back of the plane experience their journey,” Air New Zealand has taken the typical three-seat row and turned it into a couch so that economy travelers can stretch out and practically lie flat—albeit in still slightly cramped quarters.

So can two regular people fit on the SkyCouch, and what's the deal with the new premium economy seats? Find out, after the jump!

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Tags: Airplane Seats / In-Flight Comfort / Air New Zealand / Qantas / Airline News / Airlines / → All Tags

Air New Zealand Doesn't Believe in Business Class Anymore

Remember not too long ago when Qantas was all about ditching their fancy seating options? Well there must be something in the water down under, because now Air New Zealand is thinking about doing the same thing. We don’t believe it has anything to do with that flight attendant manual, but that probably didn’t help things at all.

The airline is pretty sure that high spending business travelers aren’t going to return to the skies anytime soon, so they are ditching some of their business class seating options. Air New Zealand will eliminate all the fancy seats from its fleet of short-haul Airbus A320 airplanes. That means they can cram almost 20 more cheap seats on flights headed across the Tasman Sea to Australia.

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Tags: Airplane Seats / In-Flight Comfort / Qantas / Airline News / Airlines / → All Tags

Qantas Is Ditching First Class In Favor Of More Seats In The Back

The other side of the globe has been pretty interested in airline seats lately. First Air New Zealand announced the launch of in-flight snuggling, and now Qantas is thinking about doing something out of the ordinary as well. However, the Qantas announcement has more to do with what they’re taking away rather than adding.

The airline is thinking about mixing up its seating configuration to get rid of most of its first-class seating. All in all, they want to get rid of like two-thirds of their swanky seating. There haven’t been too many details released just yet, but Qantas is looking to spend about $350 million to complete this transition.

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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!

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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.

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Tags: Wine Travel / Qantas / Air New Zealand / Drinking Travel / In-Flight Meals / → All Tags

Recession Or Not, Airlines Still Serve Top Wines To Elite Passengers

We poked fun at Qantas earlier this month for banning beer on their flights, so it's only fair we pass along this story about their in-flight drink leadership in the wine department. The Australian national airline leads the industry in serving fine vino to their first class and business class passengers, impressing even the palates of professional wine tasters. And taking the #1 slot isn't exactly easy, since the airline industry as a whole is stacked with corporations serving quality wines not just to elite customers but even in coach.

None of this will be news to Jaunted readers, who know that LAN Airlines sought out South America's solitary master wine sommelier to pick out their wine list. But the degree to which airlines are willing to go is still impressive, especially in an age of across-the-board cost cutting. Keep in mind that they're not getting directly reimbursed for any wine served in non-coach cabins, and now read this description of how far they're going to maintain customer loyalty:

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Tags: Qantas / British Airways / Airline Mergers / Airline News / Airlines / → All Tags

British Airways Considering Getting In Bed With Qantas

British Airways CEO Willie Walsh is going around telling people (like Financial Times journalists) that he thinks a merger with Aussie airline Qantas could still happen. They talked about it last year but dismissed it as a bad idea, but now British Airways is considering nicer ways to ask.

Basically, Qantas is a successful airline on its own, even though their old CEO thought merging a good idea. So British Airways is now saying they could merge in the same way as they did with Spanish airline Iberia, which would still give Qantas a fair bit of autonomy.

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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.

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