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China Eastern flight attendant in Brisbane. Before the pandemic there were nine mainland Chinese airlines flying Australian routes. Photo: Glenn Hunt Want to fly to Paris in mid-September for a three-week getaway to experience the wonders of late summer in Europe? From either Melbourne or Sydney, you can pick up an economy class airfare on a budget airline for around $2200 but fly on a major league airline and you can expect to pay between $3500-$5000. The plane ticket has gone through the roof. In July 2022 you pay for a long-distance economy class seat which almost gets you into premium economy before the pandemic. Premium economy seats? Expect to pay close to what the business costs in 2019. What happened? Rising fuel prices are part of the reason we pay more to fly to Europe, but another big factor is the lack of low price competition. As of May 2022, a total of 51 international airlines operate scheduled passenger services to Australia. That’s 10 less than in Ma

There is chaos out there for travelers, but there are ways you can prepare. Photo: Jason South An hour and a half. That’s how long it took me to leave Sydney Airport a few weeks ago. One and a half hour. Ninety minutes. To go. Not to check in and go through security and board the plane. Just to grab my bag and jump in the car and leave. It was raining, so my plan to escape with my kids from the back row of the plane straight out the back door was thwarted. We were the last to get off. Then we had to wait for our baggage (which, in Virgin Australia’s judgment, finally turned up). And then we step outside to the mother of all traffic jams, absolute traffic jams, which doesn’t move a centimeter for good. Nightmare. Happy traveling in the post-middle era of this pandemic. It’s wild out there. Difficult. Airlines are struggling, going through a mix of bad luck and bad decisions. Airports are crazy. Luggage is missing. Flight is being cancelled. The queue is ridi

Travel cash cards sound great, but there are a few key issues to watch out for. Photo: iStock Do not use a travel cash card. That’s the golden nugget of advice from Traveler “Tripologist” Michael Gebicki when it comes to managing your money abroad. Don’t approach one of them. “I hate them,” Gebicki told Flight of Fancy, the Traveler podcast, on this week’s money-themed episode. “I don’t understand why any intelligent person would ever use a travel cash card.” To clarify, a “travel cash card” is different from a standard credit or debit card. It is a product offered by many institutions today – from Australia Post to Qantas to CommBank – that allows travelers to buy amounts of foreign currency and put it in a card, which can then be used like a standard debit or credit card with local currency when they travel. abroad. Sounds great at face value, but there are a few issues, as Gebicki explains. “The exchange rate, to begin with, is pretty bad,” he said. “And then there

The Airbus A380, the world’s largest passenger plane, fell out of favor with airlines but still proved useful – and popular. Photo: AP “Too big, too expensive to operate, an anachronism” – those are some of the decisions made on the A380, the world’s largest passenger plane. Shortly after the A380 first took paying passengers into the sky – on a Singapore Airlines flight from Singapore to Sydney in October 2007 – the world’s airlines fell in love with it. The hefty weight of the four-engine giant made it a gas spender, and as oil prices skyrocketed, the A380 began to look like a dinosaur. Airlines that have signed superjumbos cancel orders. Singapore Airlines launch customers were among the first to be disappointed, canceling its first A380 after nearly a decade of service. Two Singapore Airlines A380s at the Asia Pacific Aircraft Storage facility near Alice Springs in 2020. Photo: Getty Images Came a pandemic and much of the world’s A380 fleet was stationed i

Katherine Scott and Tim Biggs Hundreds of bags were delayed at Hamburg Airport last month. A global shortage of baggage handlers has resulted in a spike in the number of delayed or lost baggage. Photo: Getty Images Lost and delayed baggage continues to plague the airline industry amid soaring travel demand and a widespread shortage of baggage handlers. Several airlines have taken extreme steps to contain the crisis, with US carrier Delta Air Lines this week flying with delayed baggage, and no passengers, from London to Detroit. Icelandair, meanwhile, puts its own baggage handlers on flights to Amsterdam to ensure baggage is dropped off at the city’s overwhelmed Schiphol Airport. Amid horror stories about lost and delayed bags, travelers are turning to baggage tracking devices to try and make sure they can find their belongings, even if airlines can’t find them. Shane Miller used Apple AirTag to find his own delayed bag at Melbourne Airport, after waiting a week t

Different airlines and countries have different restrictions on handbags. Photo: iStock The aviation industry is in turmoil as it struggles to resume operations after the pandemic. One of the victims was a passenger’s checked baggage. Baggage handlers shortages, last-minute schedule changes and cancellations have combined to create flight problems as thousands of passengers around the world find themselves waiting on the carousel for bags that fail to arrive. Parting with your checked baggage, especially if you’re on a cruise ship or somewhere else that’s not easy to reach, is bad enough, but for some people it’s much worse. Important medicines have been lost. Lufthansa has lost the instrument needed for a year-end concert in England. Qantas has temporarily lost the checked baggage of one unfortunate passenger with his mother’s ashes on a flight from London to Sydney. They reunited four days after his flight landed, but not before the airline lashed out on social media