Jake Nelson

Teri O’Toole, Secretary of the Flight Attendants’ Association of Australia (FAAA) International Division, has accused the Flying Kangaroo of using NZ crews instead of Australian staff on the longer 16-hour leg of the route so it could offer lower rest entitlements.

Echoing a similar investment by Qantas and Airbus in Queensland, the funding – comprising NZ$1.5 million from Air New Zealand and NZ$765,000 from the government – will go towards next-stage feasibility studies into developing a domestic SAF industry in New Zealand.

Ron Twine, 74 and Air New Zealand’s longest-serving flight attendant, joined the Kiwi carrier in 1970 at 21 years old, and will work his last flight on Monday when he flies NZ23 from Vancouver to Auckland. He says over the course of his long career he has made lifelong friends among fellow crew members and even passengers.

Domestic passengers were up a modest seven per cent on May 2022, but international traffic doubled year-on-year. Last month saw 3,784 international flights, compared with 1,780 in May 2022, carrying 744,868 passengers – 87.6 per cent of the 2019 figure and 103 per cent of May 2022.

Flight VN779 landed in Melbourne at 1pm on Thursday on board the seven-year-old Airbus A350-900 aircraft VN-A889. The service will operate twice per week, and compliments Vietnam Airlines’ existing service to Ho Chi Minh City.

All Nippon Airways (ANA) will resume its Perth to Tokyo (Narita) route on 29 October, flying return services three times per week on Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners and adding almost 75,000 seats back into the market. The route was popular both inbound and outbound until it was suspended in March 2020.