Rudd raps G8 failure on flight ban

FOREIGN Minister Kevin Rudd hit out at G8 nations for failing to back the establishment of a flight-exclusion zone over Libya.

Flyers hit again by fuel tax hike

QANTAS will reap an extra $250 million in revenue after raising fuel surcharges on its international flights for the second time in a little more than a month, this time by as much as 40 per cent. Higher jet fuel prices have been blamed again.

Flying kangaroo slugs passengers for higher cost of fuel

QANTAS stands to reap an extra $540 million in revenue after increasing its fuel surcharges on international flights by as much as 52 per cent, blaming a rise in fuel prices.

ON A VIM AND A PRAYER

Ninety years have passed since a Vickers Vimy bomber, piloted by Sir Ross and Sir Keith Smith, became the first international flight to land in Australia. Yesterday Greg Hardy flew a Tiger Moth to commemorate the event with the Fannie Bay History and Heritage Society. The Vickers Vimy left London for Darwin in November 1919. It landed 27 days later, on December 10, to win the 10,000 that the prime minister, Billy Hughes, had put up for his "Air Race" to encourage international aviation to the country.

Rogue offer grates with cheese maker

The powerhouse of the Warrnambool dairy sector, Warrnambool Cheese & Butter, has caught the attention of the ASX's please explain department for a second day running.

WINGING IT

Drafted a Magpie then straight onto an international flight €” in recent months Luke Ball€™s world has hardly been black and white, writes Michael Gleeson.

Unions fret about Qantas jobs

UNIONS are bracing for forced redundancies at Qantas by the middle of next year if air travel does not recover.

Here comes Tiger

THE first time Tiger Woods played in an Australian Masters was in 1997 as a 21-year-old, when not only did he do so for an appearance fee of $300,000 (small change compared with the $US3 million he is getting this time) but he turned up late suffering from jetlag after his flight was delayed for nine hours in Thailand. No chance of that happening this time when the world's greatest golfer jets into Melbourne today for his much-awaited Masters appearance at Kingston Heath. Yep, no boring old first-class seat on an international flight for him €” his mode of transport this time will be his own privately leased plane, a multimillion-dollar NetJet. When you earn the sort of money he does €” he raked in $130 million last year alone €” you can afford to travel any way you want but for Tiger it's not just for luxury and comfort alone. It's also to ensure he has some privacy. "If you've seen me at a golf tournament, you know how big a crowd I attract," said Woods once (in his pre-private jet days). "It's the same way at an airport. And, once I get to my seat on the plane, there's no way I can sleep because people are always wanting autographs." So that's his privacy accounted for €” but what about once on board? We can't say for sure what Tiger ate and drank on his way to Melbourne but we can tell you, he's pretty fussy. Those close to the champ say he likes to drink Evian €” chilled, of course €” and that the caterers are required to be very careful what they give him to eat. Prepared on a recent trip before Woods boarded a NetJet flight, the memo handed to the airline crew included a "critical note" for attendants about him being allergic to garlic and a reference about his preference for bagels with peanut butter and sliced banana.

Crew brawls on plane

DELHI. Air India, already reeling from a pilots' strike that grounded its fleet of 155 planes for five days, has grounded the crew of an international flight after a fight broke out on the plane.

Get over yourselves, boomers! The '60s weren't that flash

Forget 1969. We have it so much better right here, right now.

Raising children extends to caring about what sort of world they'll inherit

It is almost inconceivable that anyone can bludgeon children to death in their beds. The manner in which Henry Lin, 12, and his brother, Terry, 9, died along with their father and mother and aunt is so unfathomable even parents prone to catastrophic thoughts and worst-case scenarios have probably never entertained such a possibility.

Window Shopping: Jets Spend January In Deep Talent Pool Swimming With The Sharks

CONTRARY to popular belief, importing overseas talent to the A-League is not as simple as hopping on the internet, ordering a prolific striker, a midfield playmaker and a rugged defender and waiting for them to arrive, gift-wrapped, on the next available flight.

What's On

PARROTS IN FLIGHT

Column 8

A 51-YEAR partnership between Qantas and the Lennon family comes to a close tomorrow as Captain Chris Lennon of Forestville reaches 60 and retires. His father, Norman, a wartime bomber pilot awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, joined Qantas in 1956. In 1970 Captain Norm Lennon and Second Officer Chris Lennon were the first father and son to crew together on an international flight. Chris's sister, Marita, says her father was famous for his jokes and Chris was renowned for finding trips that ...