Who are Qantas?
Qantas is the national airline of Australia and is the largest Oz based flight provider.
Nicknamed “The Flying Kangaroo”, the airline is based in Sydney, with its main hub at Sydney Airport. It is the world’s second oldest continuously operating airline starting shortly after Dutch national airline KLM. Qantas is headquartered in the Qantas Centre in the Mascot suburb of the City of Botany Bay, Sydney, New South Wales.
Where do Qantas fly to in Australia?
It’s fair to say that if there a is a stretch of tarmac long enough to land a plane anywhere in Oz there will almost certainly be a Qantas flight inbound or outbound.
The major international destination airports for UK departures are Sydney, Perth, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane.
Eastern stopovers from London are plentiful and well worth the effort if you’ve got the time.
Along with Virgin Blue they offer a wide range of internal flights so are always worth a look if you’re considering traveling around on your trip.
How good are Qantas?
In 2009, Qantas was voted the sixth best airline in the world by research consultancy firm Skytrax, dropping from third in 2008 and after managing second place in both 2005 & 2006.
We’ve had the pleasure of flying to Oz a number of times with Qantas in both Economy and Business and we have no complaints at all. The service is very good and in flight entertainment is class leading. They are one of those airlines who make your holiday start when you get on the plane, not when you get off it!
Business Class is excellent with full length flat beds and superb services. If you can afford the extra expense Business and First Class really do give you a day back on this sort of long haul journey, there’s nothing like arriving fresh!
Their prices are pretty competitive both direct and via travel agents.
What else should I know about Qantas?
The name was originally an acronym for “Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services”.
Quantas is one of the most misspelled searches on Google totaling about four and a half million a year! It is so prevalent that Qantas bought the web address so that they didn’t miss put on the business.
The urban myth about Qantas never having crashed was cemented by the great Dustin Hoffman in the film Rainman, in fact Qantas have had a few scrapes although it is true that outside of World War Two they have suffered no fatalities.
