A 25 year old Queensland pilot is now offering couples the opportunity to have
sex at 6080 feet in a Beech 18 aircraft with a double bed in the cabin. At
$425, couples can take a flight from Redcliffe, north of Brisbane for 45
minutes. When they board the plane the couples receive champagne, chocolates,
strawberries, condoms, lubricant and a vibrator. The only restriction is
that the couples wear their seatbelts during take-off and landing!
Passengers will be able to use their own mobile phones during flights from late 2006. OnAir,
a Geneva-based company partially owned by Airbus, said its voice and data systems would be available on all new Airbus A380 planes from next year, allowing passengers to make calls using their own phones.
A call is expected to cost about USD2-USD2.50 per minute, with a text message
priced at about USD0.50.
Singapore Airlines could be flying the lucrative Australia-US route within a year, Singapore Transport Minister Yeo Cheow Tong said.
Yeo had "positive and friendly" discussions with Australian Transport Minister
John Anderson in Canberra last month.
Yeo said Anderson had confirmed the time was right to address the issue of SIA securing access to the Australia-US route following
the 2003 "open skies" agreement.
In that agreement, Qantas was granted unrestricted rights to fly into Singapore's Changi airport and onwards, giving the airline greater access to Europe.
Qantas, however, successfully lobbied the Australian government to deny SIA similar access to fly from Australia to the United States, which is one of the Australian carrier's most
lucrative routes.
Meanwhile, Qantas CEO Geoff Dixon was quoted as saying that airfares won't fall if Singapore Airlines is allowed to compete against it on the trans-Pacific route to the US. Mr Dixon said fares are already low due to competition between Qantas and United Airlines, the other carrier flying the route.
"Lower fares are a little bit unlikely," he told a media briefing.
Qantas has been informed by US authorities that lighters and matches have been
added to the prohibited articles list and screeners must start confiscating them
before embarkation from the end of this month. A spokesman for Transport
Minister John Anderson said Australia had no plans to follow the US example.
Airline officials have already expressed doubts that articles such as tweezers
and small nail files should be on the prohibited list. Apart from the time
taken up confiscating these articles, they say it is impossible to make an
aircraft interior weapons-free. They also worry that the emphasis on small
items detracts from more important searches for explosives and weapons.
Air India passengers who were enraged by an unexplained seven-hour flight delay grabbed three airline officials and forced them to sit on the floor for two hours while they hurled abuse at them, the carrier has claimed.
Passengers booked on the Air India flight from Mumbai to New Delhi lost their tempers because they were not kept informed of the delay or offered refreshments, according to the Indian Express newspaper.
Thousands of passengers were left stranded at the Virgin Blue terminal in Melbourne Airport
last month.
The terminal was evacuated after dozens of people fell ill, with authorities fearing a chemical leak.
But emergency crews could find no trace of any chemicals in the air and still do not
know what caused the problem.
Virgin Blue have offered to reimburse some passengers affected by the disruption
with cash refunds and free flights.
Among the 13,000 passengers affected, those who independently found alternative means of travel will be given a full cash refund or flight credit option.
Passengers who had been delayed more than four hours would also be offered a
free flight to the value of the amount paid for their disrupted flight.
Virgin Blue has turned one of its B737-800 aircraft into a flying billboard to advertise Gillette�s new powered razor, the M3Power.
The airline claims the aircraft, which has been labelled the �Gillette M3Power Plane�, is the biggest mobile billboard or �skyboard� ever seen in Australia. The entire body of the aircraft, apart from the Virgin branded tail and winglets, will be painted in M3Power�s signature black.
The aircraft will fly the Gillette M3Power flag for at least three months and
during its travels will visit every major city in Australia.
OzJet, Australia's new all business-class airline will be based in Adelaide, but Melbourne Airport will be its hub.
The maintenance centre will also be in Melbourne. Tax incentives and other inducements had lured owner Paul Stoddart to headquarter in Adelaide, and not his home town of Melbourne.
Melbourne Airport will, however, be the airline�s busiest airport, with 60 per cent of OzJet�s flights using the terminal.
The airline is expected to begin flights on August 31. Fare structure is yet to be announced.
Qantas and Virgin Blue have found themselves surrounded by music, soap and sports stars in a list of the top 10 query terms Australians entered into Internet search engine Google last year.
The two carriers finished second and fifth respectively in the
2004 list, which was topped by hotel heiress Paris Hilton.
Australia�s inclusion of two airlines was highly unusual compared with the queries entered by Google users in other countries
as most lists were dominated by sexy actors, singers and sports stars.
