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Looks like the start date for SmartLynx to officially take over the Lord Howe Island services has been brought forward to 1 December 2025. I'm not seeing a single Classic Reward seat on the SYD-LDH route after this date.

Looks like the Solomon Airlines load factors on the AKL-BNE route have been pretty abysmal. Around 28% in August 2025. Given it's still running, and only once per week, I assume this flight mainly serves to position the aircraft or something.

As many AFFers would know, Emirates flies an Airbus A380 every day between Sydney and Christchurch. According to the most recent BITRE stats, Emirates filled only ~41% of seats between Sydney and Christchurch in August 2025. It was around 53% in July 2025, 39% in June 2025 and 44% in May 2025...

In the past, if you were arriving from a yellow fever risk area such as Africa or South/Central America, you would be ineligible to use the SmartGates on arrival as you'd need to show your yellow fever certificate to a Border Force officer. This would inevitably result in long lines if you were...

Do Velocity Gold/Plat members get free seat selection on Qatar Airways?

Sounds like you're looking at paid fares with Qatar Airways or Oman Air. You just book with the operating airline on their website. You can enter your QFF number during the booking process on the Qatar or Oman Air website.

I believe this is what the maintenance work was for.

Worth noting that this bank account earns Virgin Money points, not Velocity points. They aren't the same thing.

SeatGuru is now officially closed down. If you go to the SeatGuru website, you'll now get a redirection notice to Tripadvisor (SeatGuru's owner). Luckily AeroLOPA has become a great alternative resource!

This is probably better discussed in another thread, but all the different LH subsidiaries never cease to amaze me. Many of them serve different countries and/or market segments, but then there's subsidiaries like Lufthansa City Airlines, which exists pretty much for no other reason than for LH...

Looks like we did write a trip report of our 2020 road trip: https://www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au/community/threads/road-trip-to-outback-queensland.99907/ I thought so too, when I first visited Longreach in 2015. But I ended up really liking the place - as well as Winton and the...

I'm interested but no idea yet whether I'll be able to make it. I suspect the bigger problem will be seats on the flights in/out of LRE! It's usually a single Dash 8 per day. I guess there's also the option of taking a train from Emerald or Rockhampton, which I did once.

Virgin Atlantic will commence HKT-LHR flights 3x weekly from 18 October 2026. A seasonal route running during the northern winter period. https://corporate.virginatlantic.com/gb/en/media/press-releases/virgin-atlantic-launches-flights-to-coughet.html A bit of a way off yet, but what's...

Ethiopian Airlines and Etihad have expanded their partnership. You can now earn & redeem miles on each others' flights with both of their loyalty programs. E.g. these are some examples of Etihad Guest redemptions on Ethiopian:

I still can't see any award availability on this route. Wonder if that will get loaded eventually. Could be a good use of Virgin Atlantic points, for example.

I'm able to access the bonus again as well. There's some good Premium Economy award availability at the moment flying QF on SYD-AKL or BNE-AKL. 10,000 Atmos points + taxes & a USD12.50 partner booking fee.

LH574 on 25 October took 2.5 hours longer than usual because it flew along the coast of the African continent, rather than over it. I believe the issue was that it was the first day of the new IATA northern winter season, and the airline didn't yet have overflight permissions for the new season...

This has been happening for a little while. It's called "Jetstar Flight Switch". https://www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au/jetstar-flight-switch/

Have you boarded a flight and then landed at an airport that wasn't the intended destination? I had a diversion about a decade ago on a domestic flight in Brazil. Took off from CGH bound for CNF, but after circling over Belo Horizonte for some time and being unable to land due to the weather...

There's been lots of debate on this forum about the merits of awarding status credits based on spend (as Virgin Australia now does), versus based on flights taken and distance flown (as Qantas still does). While many people on here prefer the Qantas method, there are a few people (particularly...