Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin flights in and out of Australia were cancelled after Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki erupted
Three Australian airlines have cancelled flights to and from Bali after a volcanic eruption near the Indonesian holiday spot created a dangerous ash cloud.
The groundings affected Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia flights on Tuesday and Wednesday, leaving passengers stranded.
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Meteorologists are forecasting that thunderstorms will develop over large swathes of the country every day this week, and likely into next.
Ben Domensino from Weatherzone has outlined the forecast as follows:
Early in the week, showers and thunderstorms will target central, eastern, southern and southeastern Australia on Monday and Tuesday. Severe thunderstorms are likely in parts of NSW and [Queensland] on both days and are also possible in other states.
Storms will become more focussed on a broad arc stretching across Australia’s eastern and northern states and down into the WA interior through the middle of the week. Sydney, Brisbane and Canberra will all be at risk of severe thunderstorm activity on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Independent David Pocock calls for disclosure reform while Liberal James Paterson says many politicians don’t update the log fast enough
Labor is unlikely to pursue formal Senate action against the Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie for not disclosing 16 flight upgrades over her time in parliament, despite parliamentary rules on travel requiring disclosures within 35 days.
The independent senator David Pocock said it highlighted the need for reforming parliamentary transparency rules.
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Continue reading...Shadow transport spokesperson belatedly discloses Qantas and Virgin upgrades after it was revealed she failed to declare offers of better seats
Bridget McKenzie did not declare 16 flight upgrades received over the last nine years, with the Nationals senator apologising and belatedly updating her official register of interests to disclose numerous instances of business class travel which had not been declared as per parliamentary rules.
Two instances were in July and August this year, just a few months before the shadow transport spokesperson claimed to have never been offered a single upgrade on a Qantas flight. Another five upgrades were on personal flights between Australia and New Zealand, including four in 2018 while she was a cabinet minister.
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Court to rule in Pauline Hanson-Mehreen Faruqi case
A federal court judge is ready to rule on whether Pauline Hanson made a racial slur when she told Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi to go back to Pakistan.
Continue reading...ATO finds 31% of large businesses reported nil tax paid as many companies deducted losses and used offsets to dial their bills down to zero
A major streaming service, media outlets, big airlines and a pizza chain are among more than 1,200 large companies that paid no income tax in 2022-23, a new ATO report reveals, as many businesses deducted losses and used offsets to dial their tax bills down to zero.
Netflix’s Australian operations generated more than $1.15bn in income in the 2023 financial year, documents show, but had no tax payable.
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Continue reading...Prime minister issues statement saying ‘all travel has been appropriately declared’ after allegations made in new book over politicians’ travel
Anthony Albanese has denied ever calling Alan Joyce for free Qantas flight upgrades during his time as transport minister and opposition leader.
The rebuke comes days after the claims were made in a new book by former Nine newspaper columnist Joe Aston, alleging a number of federal politicians had regularly received free business or first-class upgrades as part of their membership to the Qantas Chairman’s Lounge, described as the “speakeasy for Australia’s ruling class”.
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Continue reading...Prime minister’s office says opposition leader is making a ‘pathetic attempt at creating a headline’ over flight upgrades from 2009 to 2019
Peter Dutton says Anthony Albanese should refer himself to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (Nacc) after questioning whether the prime minister’s ties to Qantas influenced his government’s decision not to allow more Qatar Airways flights into the country.
It follows allegations in a book that Albanese had personally liaised with the former Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce about obtaining free flight upgrades during his time as transport minister and opposition leader.
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Dutton and Shorten weigh in on Queensland state election
The federal opposition leader, Peter Dutton, and the NDIS minister, Bill Shorten, both spoke with the Today show earlier from Queensland, before the election.
He’s focused on the issues which affect Queenslanders: housing, health, cheaper transport and of course tackling youth crime. So we’ll find out soon enough who’s going to win.
The fact is that it’s time for a change in Queensland and law and order is out of control.
Well, yes, he did. He did three days ago and, despite that, the government’s scare campaign continues.
The scare campaign on a sensitive issue that has been run, quite frankly, crosses the line, and we’re better than that as Queenslanders … There won’t be changes to abortion laws and Queenslanders need to know that.
Continue reading...Judge rebukes airline for ‘vast legal costs’ expended to defend claims of illegally firing baggage handlers
A federal court judge has rebuked Qantas for the “vast legal costs” expended to defend claims it illegally sacked almost 1,700 baggage handlers in 2020, as former workers move a step closer towards a compensation payout.
Justice Michael Lee ruled on Monday that three test cases should receive $30,000, $40,000 and $100,000. They suffered varying amounts of “non-economic loss”, the court ruled.
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Continue reading...A spokesperson for the airline says it is doing ‘what we can with what’s available now’ after Environmental Defenders Office singles out ‘carbon neutral’ claim
Climate campaigners have asked the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to investigate whether “fly carbon neutral” and other sustainability claims by Qantas are misleading or deceptive.
The greenwashing complaint, filed by the Environmental Defenders Office on behalf of research and advocacy organisation Climate Integrity, urged the competition watchdog to investigate the airline’s marketing materials and the credibility of the company’s transition to net zero.
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Continue reading...Technical issues meant the film, starring Dakota Johnson, was played on all screens before it was swapped for a family-friendly movie
Qantas has apologised to passengers on a flight from Sydney to Japan after an R-rated film was played to the entire plane.
Passengers on the flight to Haneda were shown the start of Daddio, a 2023 R-rated film starring Dakota Johnson.
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Continue reading...But the national carrier says contingencies are in place to prevent traveller chaos in capital cities on Monday morning
More than 1,000 Qantas engineers across Australia will walk off the job in industrial action they claim could kick the week off with peak-hour travel chaos, but the airline says it has contingencies in place and is not expecting any disruptions to travel.
Flights between 7am and 9am across three timezones on Monday morning are set to be affected in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.
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The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, has joined an international push “to hold the Taliban to account” under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
Wong says:
We know the women and girls of Afghanistan are effectively being erased from public life by the various edicts the Taliban … have issued.
The steps we are taking with Germany, Canada and the Netherlands are unprecedented. We are intending to use the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, to which Afghanistan is a party, to take action.
If I can … say again to the Australian Lebanese community. This is a deeply distressing situation for so many of you. I know that there are many Australians in Lebanon. There are many Australians who have relatives, family and friends in Lebanon. I again urge Australians in Lebanon to leave now. There are flight cancelations and disruptions, and there is a risk that Beirut airport may close for an extended period of time.
Please do not wait for a preferred route. Please take the first option you can to leave. We continue to monitor the situation closely. We have been working with partners on contingency plans now for many months but I again say to anyone who any Australian who is in Lebanon: please leave now.
Continue reading...Video of QF71 taking off on Sunday shows parts of airport’s damaged main runway lifting up as plane accelerates
An accelerating Qantas plane has caused extensive damage to a Perth runway, forcing its closure and emergency repairs.
Video of Singapore-bound QF71’s takeoff at about midday on Sunday shows the plane increasing speed as a large part of Perth airport’s main runway lifts up behind the plane.
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Continue reading...Just hours after opinion appears in AFR, shadow minister clarifies divestiture as ‘one of the various tools the treasurer needs to look at’ but not Coalition policy
The shadow transport minister, Bridget McKenzie, was forced to clarify the Coalition does not support breaking up Qantas just hours after floating the possibility of forced divestiture powers in the aviation sector.
McKenzie warned the competition watchdog’s review of the aviation sector “will be a failure if it does not address the role of divestiture” in an opinion piece in the Australian Financial Review on Monday.
Continue reading...International business revenues fell significantly on last year’s result, while budget carrier’s earnings rose 23%
Qantas Airways has posted a $2.1bn annual underlying profit – down 16% from last year’s record result – amid a surge in demand for budget Jetstar fares and mounting public anger at its service and ticket policies.
Australia’s biggest airline said bookings and travel demand remained stable across its flying brands, although moderating air fares had eroded profits, especially on international flights.
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Continue reading...Carriers and airports will have to adhere to customer rights charter setting out ‘reasonable and fair’ conduct – or be penalised
An ombudsman will police how airlines treat customers and enforce a passenger rights charter to ensure timely refunds and possibly cash compensation for delayed and cancelled flights under landmark Australian aviation reforms.
The Albanese government will release its much-anticipated aviation white paper on Monday which will also boost protections for passengers with disabilities who have historically been mistreated by airlines. Carriers will have to adhere to new standards and accommodate a broader range of wheelchairs.
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Continue reading...Employees reportedly told the airline will no longer operate flights between capital cities
As many as 360 staff at Rex Airlines have been sacked already and hundreds more are on the chopping block after administrators were called in to run the embattled carrier, with remaining staff told they may not get paid until a new buyer is found.
It comes amid speculation that Asia-based private equity firm PAG, which funded Rex’s $150m expansion to jet operations, was considering becoming the airline’s new owner out of administration.
Continue reading...IT support staff need to implement the fix in person, one computer at a time, experts have said
Supermarkets, banks, airlines and industries across Australia are slowly recovering on Saturday morning from the massive global Windows outage caused by a CrowdStrike software update gone wrong, with experts warning it could take weeks to resolve.
On Friday morning, the CEO of the Texas-based cybersecurity company, George Kurtz, apologised for the outage, and said it was not a cyber-attack, but a software update issue on its cloud-based cybersecurity platform Falcon for Microsoft Windows. It had since been fixed.
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