Qantas | Pakistan

A specially modified Airbus A350 plane touched down in France on Tuesday after a record 24-hour test flight from Australia, ahead of its joining Qantas’s fleet next year. Its 23,076-kilometre journey — across three continents and two oceans, and through two sunsets and two dawns — was one of the most-watched flights shown on the Flightradar24 tracking site. It was also a crucial step before Australian airline Qantas receives its first A350-1000ULR in April next year, to be followed by 11 others for services able to link Australia non-stop to destinations in the United States and Europe. The ULR in its designation stands for “ultra long distance”, a feat made possible by an additional 20,000-litre rear centre fuel tank being fitted to Airbus’s A350-1000 model. The flight from Australia to France took precisely 24 hours and 24 minutes. On its outbound flight last week, from Toulouse to Melbourne, the test aircraft flew 17,000 kilometres in 19 hours and 12 minutes. The return trip simulated a trajectory the plan...

Australia’s Qantas was forced to divert a flight bound for the United States over a disruptive passenger, with local media reporting the man bit a flight attendant. The flight from Melbourne was headed to Dallas on Friday when it was forced to make a stop-off in Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia, due to the disruptive passenger. The man was restrained by fellow passengers, with local media including national broadcaster ABC reporting he bit a member of Qantas staff. The man was met by local authorities on arrival and has been slapped with a no-fly ban on all Qantas planes. “The safety of our customers and our crew is our number one priority and we have zero tolerance for disruptive or threatening behaviour on our flights,” a Qantas spokesperson told AFP on Sunday. The flight path of QF21 that departed Melbourne at 3:27pm and was diverted to Papeete in French Polynesia. — screengrab via Flightradar24

Passenger restrained by fellow travellers, banned from all future Qantas flights

Australian airline Qantas said on Sunday that data from 5.7 million customers stolen in a major cyberattack this year had been shared online, part of a leak affecting dozens of firms. Disney, Google, Ikea, Toyota, McDonald’s, and fellow airlines Air France and KLM are also reported to have had data stolen in a cyberattack targeting software firm Salesforce, with the information now being held to ransom. Salesforce said this month it was “aware of recent extortion attempts by threat actors”. Qantas confirmed in July that hackers had targeted one of its customer contact centres, breaching a computer system used by a third party now known to have been Salesforce. They secured access to sensitive information such as customer names, email addresses, phone numbers and birthdays, the blue-chip Australian company said. No further breaches have taken place since, and the company is cooperating with Australian security services. “Qantas is one of a number of companies globally that has had data released by cyber crimin...