Gerard Frawley

It was more than just the blue skies and hot weather that contrasted Boeing 787-8 test aircraft ZB002’s arrival in Australia on Monday with its stop over in New Zealand on the weekend. Boeing has chosen Alice Springs as the location for hot weather testing as part of the 787-9’s flight test program, and rather

At the Dubai Airshow Qantas’s major alliance partner Emirates (one of those dastardly foreign government owned airlines) placed colossal orders for 150 Boeing 777Xs and 50 Airbus A380s. That presages yet more booming growth for Emirates. This content is available exclusively to Australian Aviation members. Login Become a Member To continue reading the rest of

For 20 years the DC-9 was a staple of Qantas’s domestic predecessors TAA/Australian Airlines’ services to Canberra before the type was retired in 1989, but the modern incarnation of this fondly remembered jet, the Boeing 717, has touched down in the nation’s capital as Qantas re-arms for the hotly contested Canberra corporate market. Qantas’s QantasLink subsidiary is introducing five

For defence will it matter who wins the election? On paper there is little to split the two major sides of politics. Both are committed to growing defence spending to 2 per cent of GDP. Both are committed to big ticket items such as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and building 12 submarines in Adelaide.

With a federal election tomorrow, it is timely to reflect on the role the federal government plays in Australian aviation. From CASA, to Airservices, to taxation levels, supporting research and development, to education policy, elements of the federal government, and its policies, touch aviation across a broad spectrum. But is it a force for good?

Next week Australia will have, no matter who wins the federal election, a new government. It might be led by the recycled, ‘everything old is new again’ Kevin Rudd, or more likely, as the polls suggest, Tony Abbott’s Liberal-Nationals Coalition. And it appears that that new government will make a new decision on a second