Merged: Fifty years of Jets across the Pacific.
 

QF have a PR piece out celebrating 50 years of jet services across the Pacific. About Qantas - Newsroom - Media Releases

It contains this gem
Bit tough on BOAC and the Comet.

Yes I know they meant QF was first non-US airline to fly the 707, but that's not what they wrote.

This will be questionable: Did not Pan Am fly the B707 prior to Qantas and across the Pacific if not around the world?

DK

A bit tough on Aeroflot too, who operated the Tu-104 in the mid 1950s before the 707 even entered service. CSA (Czech) also operated the Tu- 104 from 1957.

The French started operations in the Caravelle on 27 July 1959 and thus also beat Qantas by 2 days.

So, that would make Qantas maybe the 5th operator of jets outside the USA, not the first.

:cool:

Poor bugger writing the press release is probably 6 months out of a PR degree and probably has a knowledge of aviation similar to the average apprentice hairdresser !

Look at wikipedia it probably says it in there!

Qantas celebrates 50 years in jet age with Boeing 707
 

This appeared in the on line version of The Australian . . . quite an achievement really.

See Qantas celebrates 50 years in jet age with Boeing 707 | The Australian to view the video.

Cheers

Pedota

Steve Creedy, Aviation writer | July 29, 2009
Article from: The Australian

IT guzzled fuel and it belched black smoke on take-off, but when the Boeing 707 propelled Australians into the jet age 50 years ago it struck a decisive blow to the tyranny of distance.

Qantas is today celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first commercial passenger flight across the Pacific and the first service to be operated using its then ultra-modern 707s.

Flight EM774 left Sydney Airport at 3.55pm on July 29, 1959, bound for San Francisco via Nadi, Fiji, and Honolulu.

The B707 replaced propeller-driven piston-engine aircraft such as the Lockheed Super Constellation L1049 and cut journey times in half.

On the kangaroo route, this meant a journey between Australia and the UK was slashed from 63 hours to 33 hours. And it was a far cry from the 12 days it took to complete the journey in 1935.

The new jet could avoid the turbulent conditions that sometimes plagued the “Connies” and there was little vibration, as well as greatly reduced noise, as it cruised at 885km/h at altitudes between 35,000 and 40,000ft.

A promotional brochure at the time boasted: "A typical itinerary of a 707 passenger could read breakfast in London; luncheon in New York; supper in San Francisco. In fact, with the crossing of the international date line, it's quite possible to fly from Sunday to Monday and back to Sunday again!"

The new planes also provided more seats: 84 in a two-class configuration compared to 60 in the same configuration on the Constellations.

Separately, Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said there was still too much capacity on certain international airline routes, especially on those between Australia and both the UK and US.

"Some carriers are acting rationally and some carriers are still adding to capacity in an environment where the market is in decline," Mr Joyce told reporters in Sydney.

He said price competition had been strong "across the board" and that it had led to significant discounting.

"We've been saying that can't continue, the aviation industry clearly takes some time to adjust to capacity levels," he said. "That will occur, but at the moment there are a lot of routes where there is a lot of discounting taking place, and there's too much capacity on certain routes and that is leading to losses on those routes."

However, he noted that Qantas's freight operations had seen less of a decline in recent months and that there was some strength in freight operations out of China and the US.

However, he said it was "too early to say if green shoots are here to stay".

Here's the link to Qantas' YouTube posting of that video:

YouTube - 50 years of Qantas Leadership in Jet Services

Some more pics and info from here:

Plane Talking

Congratulations Qantas.

What a magnificent aircraft the 707 was.

Was that Steve Jobs sitting in first class with that fashionable skivvy ? :}

.....and why did they include the knobs with hats on the 380 flight deck........

What beat up!
50 th " anniversary" of operating an aircraft that was retired some 25 years ago? Tripe...utter tripe!
Surprised they haven't unnounced Captain J Trav doing a commemorative flight in his flying RV.
Obviously this is part of the new campaign to bring back premium passengers. They are starting by trying to rekindle memories of the " good old days".
The aircraft may have been a great plane as the company also may have been. Pity the company reputation has been tarnished by events like:
-Maintenance standards degradation
-Disintegration of in flight service , not to mention ground service
-Pushing economy and generally most domestic passengers onto lowcost operations
- Safety concerns like Bangkok.departures without runway lights
-The " Warren" and adventurous FA episodes.
Hudson Fysh would be turning in his grave!

Plastic Fantastic, I think you have missed something. Have another crack at trying to figure out the significance.:ok:

Have had another look at it and I still smell the same rat. They weren't the first jet operator nor was Icarus their first pilot. However, they would have you believe that they and only they have done it all.If you look at the ad, it subliminally suggests that they were the first 707 international operator,they were gods of safety and service , a far larger operator than they were( are) and now with the 380.... more of the same. The truth is somewhat different.

Lets face it, in 1959 how significant was a tin pot country like Australia not to mention an airline to said tin pot country with a name that people couldn't spell?
Jet setters, rich and famous, polititians to Australia? Spare me, please.
A plane or two a week across the Pacific with a couple of stops compared with the many jets that would have been crossing the Atlantic or to South America? Until Paul Hogan went to LA with a bucket of "shrimp", who cared about Australia as a destination.
It's an ad and like all advertising, it is all about creating perceived differences in essentially identical products for the prupose of making money.

Well,that just about says it all.....:yuk:

In the 40's an ambitious country up north called Japan obviously didn't think that....

Plastic sounds like a 10 pound pom who has never fitted in....

Actually, I think plastic is right on the money. :D

Crew rest-Born and bred in Australia.
 

The significance of this wonderful piece of propaganda is that Qantas faces an agressive competitor on the transpacific routes in the form of Voz . In time this competitor will spread its network into other Qantas markets and continue to erode the QF balence sheet.

I vaguely remember that when Ansett started International operations the Qantas advertising response was to annouce "75 years of Qantas". Here we have a similar response and athough the recent QF press release found in http://www.pprune.org/dg-p-reporting...s-pacific.html
contains many significant 'factual discrepancies' I have no doubt that their marketing will be successful.

Wrong
 

Another example of poor standards in journalism - look at Creedy's quote

"Qantas is today celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first commercial passenger flight across the Pacific and the first service to be operated using its then ultra-modern 707s."


Steve Creedy has it wrong again ...... unless PAA, BCPA, ANA and the SUPER Constellation flights were all 'non-commercial'.

Plainmaker

Crew Rest,

Maybe you are too young to appreciate the past but what is wrong with celebrating milestones of an historic nature? Qantas has a rich history and for eons has been a leader in world aviation - so much so that others follow. For example, who led the world with Business Class?

So, are you really saying that all those years ago the planners at Qantas sat down and thought 'gee, in 50 years time a new carrier will be competing against us on the Pacific and we must have a plan for a celebration that will blow their marketing campaign out of the water?'. Get real.

The real marketing coup that gazumped Ansett had to have been the unveiling of VH-OJB and then flying the colourful beast instead of a 767 to Osaka on the same day as Ansett's inaugural to Osaka. Knowing that the "world's largest piece of artwork" would steal headlines in Japan, what a brilliant way to derail the marketing efforts of a new competitor? And not long after Ansett gave itself a lot of free publicity with its well executed own-goal "wheels up" at Sydney!

Lastly, there can be little or no excuse for sloppy and careless journalism that we see today. Is it die to igorance or lack of care or a combination of both?

Well, regardless of the intent, my first jet flight was on a 707 back in '73. Of course, we had to fly in a 707 to SYD as the 747 would never be used into MEL...:rolleyes:

Assuming you mean "announced", then I'm sure you'll recall JT's son passing away & you'd understand that he's not in the mix for celebrating with Qantas at the moment.

Quite right: This PR gimp thinks that nothing is newsworthy unless it was done first. (But if being first was the issue, then Pan Am must own the Pacific, I would have thought.)

At least the Chief Exec focused on the real acheivement.

I'm suprised he didn't seek Rain Man for a quote....:hmm:

The sloppy journalism spoils the real story, which was that QF never lost a passenger during those 20 years across the Pacific. The unsung heros must be the maintenance staff. (And also, perhaps, the navigators.)