Boeing 777 Arrives - aircraft - technology

First V Australia Boeing 777 Arrives in Sydney Plus More Aviation News

Published on Monday, February 9th, 2009 at 4:05 am

V Australia launches and Branson attacks, Qantas fires under qualified maintenance employee and flight QF25 takes off with a bang

There?s been a bit going on in aviation over the past few days so here is the best (and worst) of it.

V Australia officially launched last week and Richard Branson took the opportunity to frolic with models in bikini?s in freezing Seattle weather while having a swipe at Boeing and Qantas. The V Australia Boeing 777, which touched down in Sydney for the first time this morning, flew first from Seattle to Los Angeles where Branson and Aussies Julian McMahon and Holly Valance celebrated the new airlines arrival to the market. It then flew onwards to Sydney. It marks the first time a Boeing 777 will be used on the trans-pacific route as Qantas and United, the only carriers to fly from Australia to the US mainland currently, fly Airbus A380s or Boeing 747s.

It wasn?t all good news though. Branson stated that the manufacturing delays caused by the Boeing workers strike could cost the Seattle based company future business.

“The strike hurt hundreds of thousands of our passengers. It messed up Virgin Blue in Australia, it ruined people’s Christmas holidays,? Branson said. The Boeing problems pushed back the launch of V Australia into the market.

While the V Australia Boeing 777 landed without issue at Sydney?s Kingsford-Smith Airport this morning, Qantas was having trouble emulating this feat (again). Flight QF25 from Melbourne?s Tullamarine to Los Angeles took off with a bang, literally, when a loud bang was heard just after take off at 1pm today. The Boeing 747 was forced to level off and turn back. The problem was serious enough for Qantas to order a replacement plane to fly in from Sydney to take the stranded passengers to LA. The flight is now scheduled to leave just after midnight tonight.

In other Qantas news, the airline has fired an unqualified employee doing maintenance work for them. Ben Schnieders from The Age in Melbourne wrote, ?Last night the Civil Aviation Safety Authority said it had ordered Qantas to immediately identify all the work done by the employee over the past two years and assess the risk to air safety of each piece of work.?

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This entry was posted on Monday, February 9th, 2009 at 4:05 am and is filed under Aircraft, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.