100 years of Qantas

Today marks Qantas' centenary, starting from a bush airline in outback Queensland to an international powerhouse today. Sadly, the airline's 100th birthday celebrations have been muted by the global Coronavirus pandemic, its largest aircraft, the Airbus A380, gathering dust in the Californian desert, its most iconic aircraft, the Boeing 747, finally retired this year. So many staff, from those at the frontline and the back office to their most senior pilots have lost their jobs and their dreams.

Qantas labels itself as The Spirit of Australia, and indeed it is a national icon. So many of my best memories have involved a flight on the Flying Kangaroo.

Our honeymoon flights to London, our first trips to New Zealand and Japan. Trips to see family in Queensland and colleagues in Canberra. The celebrations of the Disney Planes movie premier aboard a Qantas 767. Our one and only proper business class flight to Shanghai. Flights alone and with family. My last flight, a domestic leg back from Brisbane after an overnight flight from Singapore.

Whenever I climb aboard a Qantas aircraft there is a sense of familiarity, a sense that this is home territory. Somehow the Qantas flights always seemed to go faster.

I haven't had any flights myself this year, though I was sorely tempted to book some return flights today. The air is hot, the winds are dry and the sky is pewter with high cloud. When I stepped out this morning the first thing I saw was a Qantas A333 silently gliding past on descent into Sydney Airport from Shanghai. It's the kind of scene, the kind of day, that makes me dream of distant journeys.

I look forward to days like that again. So happy birthday Qantas and may the next 100 years be even better than the first!

Comments

One night in Canberra

It's the April school holidays and we are too busy to have a break but need one because of that. And because it's the Easter weekend the options are limited, so we just drive down to Canberra for the night. No, this isn't our first trip for 2023. I wrote about Japan on another site . I refuse to wake up early so we depart after 8.30 AM. There is not much to say about the drive except that the clouds seem so low and Lake George is very full. We stop at a rest area and at the lookout up the hill to take it all in. Everyone is hungry so we first stop in Dickson and then can't think of anything to eat, so I drive us to Civic, where we can't decide and end up eating at the Singaporean Killiney Kopitiam branch. The Canberra Centre has nice shops. I dream of getting an iPad from the Apple Store, we buy a blanket and toothbrushes from Muji and wish that Lego wasn't so expensive. Nothing we can't get in Sydney, but then we rarely go out shopping in the city. It'

Travelling allrite is moving

I've migrated most of the content to allrite@ (https://allrite.at) so please follow me there.

A selection of jams

We're home now. The last two days of our Brisbane trip involved a lot of driving but not always much movement. On Wednesday we arranged to met Sis and her family at Robina Town Centre, a massive shopping mall. That meant a drive down towards the Gold Coast along the same motorway we'd driven up along. What should have taken an hour took twice that due to the holiday traffic along the 3 and 4 lane road. Lots of people taking the turn-offs to three of the "Worlds" (Wet'n'Wild, Movie World and Dreamworld). The Town Centre hosts Artvo , a trick photography gallery where you use perspectives to make subjects look like they are part of the artwork. It was surprisingly fun, despite the aversion of we males to being the subjects of photos. Afterwards we had a long chat over lunch, which was sourced from a variety of eateries. I had roti and chicken curry from Roti and Buns . Passable, though the curry was more laksa like. We later took Sis to Daiso and she and her h

travelling allrite

Search This Blog