Jake Nelson

The deal, as reported by The Australian Financial Review, would give the government a bigger say in the ultimate fate of the collapsed airline, and comes after it provided Rex with an $80 million funding injection to keep flying as administrator EY Australia works to make a sale.

Members of the Qantas Engineers’ Alliance (QEA) or “alliance unions”, comprising the AMWU, AWU and ETU, will down tools starting at 3:30am local time on Friday until 7:30am local time on Saturday across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide Airports.

Fares are now on sale from Sydney, Brisbane and Perth to Doha starting June 2025, with Melbourne coming later in the year. Virgin’s economy launch sale fares significantly undercut rivals Qantas and Emirates on some routes, including Perth-Paris and Brisbane-Rome, as reported by The Australian.

Virgin expects to fly nearly 500,000 seats per week across its domestic and short-haul international networks in the December–January holiday period, or up to 3,000 weekly flights.

In its newly-released RPAS and AAM Strategic Regulatory Roadmap, the aviation safety regulator said it expects the first commercial AAM operations, including “air taxi” passenger transport in urban areas, to be up and running between 2027 and 2029.

Currently operating three times per week on the 787-9 Dreamliner, the Narita service – which recommenced in October, two weeks ahead of schedule – was originally slated to end for the season in March 2025 but will now be a permanent fixture at the airport.