As Rex’s inaugural domestic services between Sydney and Melbourne fast approach, Rex today unveils its refreshed cabin crew uniforms.
The new uniform retains the essence of Rex’s signature country hospitality but is presented in a classic yet elegant style.
Rex’s National Flight Attendant Manager, Donna Griffith, said, “This fresh new look is intended to contemporise Rex’s signature country hospitality. We have chosen a clean, fuss-free look that is simple yet elegant. Materials and cut have been carefully selected to provide comfort and practicality for my cabin crew.”
“We are very proud that our uniforms are not designed by any famous designer. As with everything else we do in Rex, we have done everything in-house, from the design to the selection of material. This is who we are. This is what we do. This is why we are one of the most successful airlines in the world.”
Rex services between Sydney and Melbourne commence on 1 March 2021 with fares on sale from $79. Other city services will follow shortly after.
Please refer to the photos appended to this media release.
Rex is Australia’s largest independent regional and domestic airline operating a fleet of 60 Saab340 aircraft (pre-COVID) on 1,500 weekly flights to 59 destinations throughout all states in Australia. Rex will begin its domestic services with six 737-800NGs in March 2021. In addition to the airline Rex, the Rex Group comprises wholly owned subsidiaries Pel-Air Aviation (air freight, aeromedical and charter operator) and the two pilot academies, Australian Airline Pilot Academy in Wagga Wagga and Ballarat.
Low-fare carrier Frontier Airlines today announces new daily nonstop flights between Orlando and Phoenix, plus the resumption of its popular San Diego route beginning in March 2021. To celebrate this new service, Frontier is offering fares as low as $69*, which are available now at FlyFrontier.com.
“Frontier is taking off in the new year with an unprecedented level of service at Orlando International Airport, which now includes daily flights to Phoenix, one of 60 destinations that Frontier will fly nonstop from Orlando in March,” said Daniel Shurz, senior vice president of commercial, Frontier Airlines. “Orlando continues to be incredibly popular with travelers across the spectrum, from vacationing families to adventure seekers, and Frontier offers unparalleled affordability for flyers visiting the Theme Park Capital of the World.”
New route from Orlando International Airport (MCO):
SERVICE TO
SERVICE START
SERVICE FREQUENCY
INTRO FARE
APPLICABLE DAYS FOR INTRO FARE:
Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX)
March 11, 2021
Daily
$69*
Tuesday and Wednesday
Returning route from Orlando International Airport (MCO):
SERVICE TO
SERVICE START
SERVICE FREQUENCY
INTRO FARE
APPLICABLE DAYS FOR INTRO FARE:
San Diego International Airport (SAN)
March 7, 2021
Daily
$69*
Tuesday and Wednesday
These two routes join new Frontier nonstop routes from Orlando that start in February to Cancun, Miami, Punta Cana, Santo Domingo, St. Thomas, and Wilmington.
Frequency and times are subject to change, so please check FlyFrontier.com for the most updated schedule.
Emirates has announced it will resume non-stop services to Seattle (from 1st February), Dallas and San Francisco (from 2nd March), offering its customers seamless connectivity via Dubai to and from popular destinations in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.
The addition of these three destinations will take Emirates’ North American network to 10 destinations following the resumption of services to Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York JFK, Toronto and Washington DC.
Flights to/from San Francisco will operate four times weekly on Emirates’ Boeing 777-300ER while flights to/from Seattle (operating four times weekly) and Dallas (three times weekly) will be operated with the two-class Boeing 777-200LR, offering 38 lie-flat seats in Business and 264 ergonomically designed seats in Economy class.
The airline will also be providing its customers more options and choice with additional flights to New York , Los Angeles and São Paulo. Effective 1st February, Emirates will be operating double daily flights to John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) and a daily flight to Los Angeles (LAX). Emirates customers also have seamless access to other US cities via the airline’s codeshare agreements with Jetblue and Alaskan Airlines.
In South America, Emirates will be introducing a fifth weekly flight to São Paulo (from February 5th), offering customers in Brazil even more travel options with greater access to its expanding network. Beyond São Paulo, Emirates customers can enjoy seamless connectivity and access to 24 other cities in Brazil via the airline’s codeshare partnership with GOL and its interline agreements with Azul and LATAM.
Emirates has safely and gradually restarted operations across its network and currently serves 114 destinations on six continents.
Since it safely resumed tourism activity in July, Dubai remains one of the world’s most popular holiday destinations, especially during the winter season. The city is open for international business and leisure visitors. From sun-soaked beaches and heritage activities to world class hospitality and leisure facilities, Dubai offers a variety of world-class experiences. It was one of the world’s first cities to obtain Safe Travels stamp from the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) – which endorses Dubai’s comprehensive and effective measures to ensure guest health and safety.
The American Airlines Cargo team carried its first shipment of coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine last night. In close collaboration with pharmaceutical and cargo partners, the airline received the shipment by truck at Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD) and loaded the shipment onto a Boeing 777-200 aircraft flying to Miami International Airport (MIA). The vaccine shipment will arrive at its final destination in a U.S. territory in the Caribbean later today.
“The American team is proud to be a part of the critical effort to get lifesaving vaccine safely and quickly to people around the world,” said American Airlines Cargo President Jessica Tyler. “We were able to mobilize within hours of getting the call to move thousands of doses. We know this is the first of many shipments to come, and we are ready to scale our operation as additional vaccine is produced and ready for distribution.”
American began conducting trial flights in November to simulate the conditions required to transport the COVID-19 vaccine, stress testing the thermal packaging and operational handling process to ensure it remains stable in transit.
American is an internationally recognized expert in cold chain logistics with an established network of facilities and team members who specialize in temperature-critical shipments to more than 150 cities in 46 countries around the world. In addition, American has the largest dedicated temperature-controlled pharmaceutical shipping facility operated by an airline in the United States. From the time a shipment arrives at one of American’s facilities, it is tracked throughout its journey on the ground and from the airline’s Cargo Control Center, located within its Integrated Operations Control in Fort Worth, Texas.
This level of expert care has earned American the International Air Transport Association’s prestigious Center of Excellence for Independent Validators in Pharmaceutical Logistics (CEIV Pharma) certification. The CEIV certification is given to air carriers and players in the air cargo supply chain that have established the tools, procedures and staffing to ensure life sciences products are properly handled and arrive at their destination fully effective.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, American has been transporting hundreds of thousands of pounds of personal protective equipment (PPE), medical equipment, COVID-19 test kits and pharmaceuticals to help battle the coronavirus, as well as components for Phase III COVID-19 vaccine trials.
Qantas Frequent Flyers can now earn and use points on premium train trips around Australia including The Ghan, Indian Pacific and the Great Southern – marking the first time Classic Reward Seats have been offered on the ground.
From today, members can use points to book Classic Rail Reward seats or earn 1 point per $1 spent on Journey Beyond Rail Expeditions journeys.
Journey Beyond offers extended overnight rail holidays that traverse some of Australia’s most picturesque and iconic landscapes such as the Red Centre, Blue Mountains and east coast. The all-inclusive high-end expeditions include bespoke menus inspired by the places the trains travel through and the opportunity for guests to explore beyond the tracks with immersive Off Train Excursions before returning to their onboard accommodation and world-class hospitality.
Qantas Loyalty CEO, Olivia Wirth said at a time when Australians are planning domestic holidays more than ever the partnership with Journey Beyond Rail Expeditions provides even more choice for frequent flyers to use their Qantas Points.
“Ninety per cent of our members want to use their points for travel so the ability to explore the country by rail is an exciting alternative for frequent flyers and a real drawcard for our program,” Ms Wirth said.
“Whether members are redeeming points on flights, hotel bookings, holiday packages or now rail travel, we’re always evolving and innovating to meet the needs of our 13 million members and help bring them closer to their next dream trip.”
Journey Beyond Chief Executive Officer, Chris Tallent said the announcement reflected a coming together of two great Australian brands.
“We’re thrilled to partner with Qantas Frequent Flyer and provide people who love to travel with greater value when they choose a premium rail holiday experience,” Mr Tallent said.
“Like Qantas, Journey Beyond is in the business of taking people to incredible places across the country and curating unique experiences that forge lasting memories.
“As the first travel partner to offer Classic Reward Seats outside of flights, with the launch of our ‘Classic Rail’ Rewards, we look forward to growing our partnership with Qantas and sharing the joy of travel with our guests.”
Bookings are now available for rail travel next year with the Great Southern’s second season being extended by two weeks into February and the once-a-week Ghan service becoming a twice-weekly service from May to August. Work is currently underway to see the Indian Pacific return with its weekly journeys from mid-February.
Qantas Frequent Flyers can earn 1 Qantas Point per $1 spent on all Journey Beyond Rail Expeditions or use points to book twin and single Gold Cabins on The Ghan, Indian Pacific and Great Southern starting from 100,000 Qantas Points.
Emirates announced plans to operate its popular A380 aircraft four times a day to London Heathrow from 27 November and six times a week to Manchester from 2 December, and to deploy additional A380 services to Moscow from the current two-a-week, to a daily service from 25 November.
Emirates will also increase flights to Birmingham and Glasgow from the current four-a-week to daily services at both cities, from 27 November and 1 December respectively. Emirates’ services to Manchester will increase from the current eight-a-week to 10 flights per week from 1 December, of which six will be served by an Emirates A380 and four with a Boeing 777-300ER. At London Heathrow, Emirates’ current twice daily A380 and once daily Boeing 777 flights will become four daily A380 services from 27 November.
These represent a significant expansion of Emirates services to the UK, following the recent establishment of the UK-UAE air travel corridor which has led to increased demand. Under the air travel corridor, travellers entering the UK from the UAE will not longer be required to quarantine, which is a boon for travellers, and speaks to the UAE’s rigorous and effective pandemic response. In the other direction, UK travellers heading to Dubai can opt to do their COVID-19 PCR tests 96 hours in advance of their flight, or to do the test on arrival in Dubai, adding to the ease of travel.
Emirates’ enhanced services to Moscow will also meet increased demand from travellers seeking to holiday in Dubai, or at popular island destinations within easy reach through Dubai, such as the Maldives.
Dubai is open for international business and leisure visitors. From sun-soaked beaches and heritage activities to world class hospitality and leisure facilities, Dubai offers a variety of world-class experiences for visitors. In 2019, the city welcomed 16.7 million visitors and hosted over hundreds of global meetings and exhibitions, as well as sports and entertainment events. Dubai was one of the world’s first cities to obtain Safe Travels stamp from the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) – which endorses Dubai’s comprehensive and effective measures to ensure guest health and safety.
Flexibility and assurance: Emirates’ booking policies offer customers flexibility and confidence to plan their travel. Customers who purchase an Emirates ticket for travel on or before 31 March 2021, can enjoy generous rebooking terms and options, if they have to change their travel plans. Customers have options to change their travel dates or extend their ticket validity for 2 years.
COVID-19 PCR testing: Emirates customers who require a COVID-19 PCR test certificate prior to departure from Dubai, can avail of special rates at clinics across Dubai by simply presenting their ticket or boarding pass. Home or office testing is also available, with results in 48 hours.
Free, global cover for COVID-19 related costs: Customers can now travel with confidence, as Emirates has committed to cover COVID-19 related medical expenses, free of cost, should they be diagnosed with COVID-19 during their travel while they are away from home. This cover is immediately effective for customers flying on Emirates until 31 December 2020, and is valid for 31 days from the moment they fly the first sector of their journey. This means Emirates customers can continue to benefit from the added assurance of this cover, even if they travel onwards to another city after arriving at their Emirates destination. For more details: www.emirates.com/COVID19assistance
Health and safety: Emirates has implemented a comprehensive set of measures at every step of the customer journey to ensure the safety of its customers and employees on the ground and in the air, including the distribution of complimentary hygiene kits containing masks, gloves, hand sanitiser and antibacterial wipes to all customers. For more information on these measures and the services available on each flight, visit: www.emirates.com/yoursafety
Tourist entry requirements: For more information on entry requirements for international visitors to Dubai visit: www.emirates.com/flytoDubai
Boeing [NYSE: BA] today released its biennial World Air Cargo Forecast (WACF), reflecting COVID-19 impacts and opportunities as well as substantial long-term demand for freighters over the next two decades.
Enabled by a rebound in global trade and long-term growth, the WACF forecasts demand for 2,430 freighters over the next 20 years, including 930 new production freighters and 1,500 freighters converted from passenger airplanes.
According to the new forecast, world air cargo traffic will grow at 4% per year over the next 20 years. This growth is influenced by trade and growing express shipments to support expanding e-commerce operations. With these developments and the proven need for dedicated freighter capacity to support the world’s transportation system, the global air cargo fleet is expected to grow by more than 60% through 2039.
“Freighter operators have been in a unique position in 2020 to meet market requirements for speed, reliability and security, transporting medical supplies and other goods for people and communities around the world,” said Darren Hulst, vice president of Commercial Marketing. “Looking ahead, dedicated freighters will be even more critical to compete in air cargo markets; they carry more than half of air cargo traffic, and airlines operating them earn nearly 90% of air cargo industry revenue.”
In addition to projecting long-term demand for freighters, the WACF provides insights into air cargo performance during the pandemic, including the following:
– E-commerce, which was growing at double-digit rates prior to the pandemic, has accelerated its impact on the air cargo market as more businesses shifted to online selling platforms. Year to date through September, express carriers increased traffic by 14%
– Passenger belly cargo, which in 2019 accounted for about half of the world air cargo capacity, was significantly reduced when airlines parked thousands of planes. Freighter operators responded by operating above normal utilization levels, and traffic for all-cargo carriers grew 6%
– So far in 2020, approximately 200 airlines used more than 2,000 passenger widebody aircraft for cargo-only operations to generate cash flow and support global supply chains. These passenger freighters have taken up some of the capacity shortfall and, in some cases, generated quarterly profits for carriers despite minimal passenger operations
Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services (QANTAS) today marks 100 years since it was founded in the Australian outback.
On 16 November 1920, two veterans of the Australian Flying Corps, Hudson Fysh and Paul McGinness, together with local grazier Fergus McMaster, founded what would later become the national carrier.
This happened just 17 years after the first powered flight by the Wright Brothers, two years after the end of World War One and at the tail end of the last major global pandemic, the Spanish Flu.
The new airline focused on conquering the “tyranny of distance” that was a major barrier to the growth of modern Australia. Its early chances of success were uncertain, to the point early backers called their investment “a donation”.
Initially carrying mail between outback towns, the airline was flying passengers to Singapore by the 1930’s. By the end of the 1940’s its strategic importance saw it nationalised and in the 1960’s, it was an early adopter of the jet aircraft that mainstreamed global travel. Qantas invented business class in the 1970’s, switched to an all-747 fleet in the 1980’s, was privatised in the 1990’s, founded Jetstar in 2004, went through major restructuring in 2014 and, by 2020, had recently completed several important ‘firsts’ in non-stop travel to Europe and the US.
Qantas is the oldest continuously-operating airline in the world and the only one that (normally) flies to every single inhabited continent on earth.
Planned centenary celebrations have been significantly scaled back due to the impact of COVID-19, but Qantas will still mark the occasion with a low-level flyover of Sydney Harbour on the evening of its anniversary.
The flight path is expected to pass near Rose Bay where our Empire Flying Boats took off for Singapore between 1938 and 1942.
Qantas Chairman, Richard Goyder, said: “The history of Qantas shows it’s no stranger to a challenge or a crisis. That’s often when its role as the national carrier has really come to the fore.
“We want to use this moment to say thank you to all those who have supported Qantas over the years. And, in particular, to the many people who have dedicated some or all of their careers to this great company.”
Qantas Group CEO, Alan Joyce, said: “Around the world, Qantas is probably best known for its safety record, endurance flying and long list of aviation firsts. But for Australians, there’s nothing quite like seeing the flying kangaroo at the airport, waiting to take you home. We hope to be doing a lot more of that in the months and years ahead.”
ATR, the world number one regional aircraft manufacturer, has released two new editions of its Upgrades Catalogues. They now offer 120 solutions – developed either internally or externally – to ATR operators wishing to upgrade their aircraft with state-of-the-art designs and capabilities.
The creation of a catalogue of external changes – Supplemental Type Certificates (STC) and minor modifications developed and provided by external Design Organisation Approval (DOA) partners – is a major step forward for the market-leading turboprop manufacturer. ATR can now complement its own expertise with the know-how and resources of reliable external partners – Aero Engineering Services, Akka Technologies, ECM Skyservices, Eirtech Aviation Services, PMV Engineering and Recaero.
With solutions ranging from cabin reconfigurations, in-flight entertainment systems and avionics upgrades, to freighter conversions, ATR operators have access to a vast range of possibilities for their brand new or second-hand aircraft to explore new business opportunities, and enhance passenger experience and aircraft performance. All of these solutions have been either developed by ATR or benefit from the manufacturer’s expertise, which guarantees their optimal integration within the aircraft environment.
– Air cargo carrier responding to market demand for additional cargo capacity
– Demonstrates agility and innovation in business response to the pandemic
Emirates SkyCargo has started utilising its Airbus A380 aircraft on select cargo charter operations to transport urgently required cargo across its network. The first dedicated Emirates A380 ‘mini-freighter’ successfully transported medical supplies between Seoul and Amsterdam via Dubai.
Working collaboratively with the Engineering and Flight Operations teams within Emirates, the air cargo carrier has optimised the cargo capacity of the Airbus A380 to safely transport around 50 tonnes of cargo per flight in the bellyhold of the aircraft.
Emirates SkyCargo has introduced dedicated cargo operations on the A380 aircraft in response to the surge in the demand for air cargo capacity required for the urgent transportation of critical goods, including medical supplies for combatting COVID-19 in regions experiencing a second wave of the pandemic.
Emirates SkyCargo is working on further optimising the capacity of its Airbus A380 aircraft through measures such as seat loading of cargo and has planned more dedicated cargo flights on aircraft for the month of November.
A leading player in the global air cargo industry with a destination network spread across six continents, Emirates SkyCargo has continued to introduce innovative cargo solutions in line with rapidly evolving market conditions since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The freight division of Emirates offers a variety of options for cargo capacity and connectivity to best match its customers’ requirements. Emirates SkyCargo operates dedicated cargo flights on its Boeing 777-F and its Boeing 777-300ER aircraft including 14 modified Boeing 777-300ER passenger aircraft with seats removed from Economy Class for additional cargo volume.
Through its responsiveness and agility, the air cargo carrier has been able to maintain the flow of essential goods and trade across international markets during the pandemic, often providing a much required helpline to communities around the world.
Taking a lead in the supply chain for the global distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine, Emirates SkyCargo announced recently that it set up the world’s largest EU GDP compliant airside hub in Dubai dedicated for the COVID-19 vaccine. In addition to world-class fit for purpose infrastructure for the storage of the vaccine, the facility would also be able to offer value added services such as repackaging, re-icing and redistribution of the vaccine. The air cargo carrier has also set up a rapid response team to coordinate requests for the movement of the vaccine.
Emirates SkyCargo currently offers cargo capacity on scheduled flights to 135 destinations across the world.
