The Australia Desk

Episode 369: Stuck on Taxes

Posted on September 23, 2015 by admin

Would you believe the boys are *still* sorting out their taxes? Yeah, who knew!

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Episode 368: Taxes killed us

Posted on September 16, 2015 by admin

No show this week as the boys are busy doing their taxes, sorry :(

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Episode 367: Recovering from AusFly 2015

Posted on September 9, 2015 by admin

The boys were doing airshow commentary at AusFly 2015 and are trying to recover after driving for over 10 hours to get back home. It was a great event and they love doing the commentary every year but wow, it’s a draining experience.

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Episode 366: Bigger is better? A380, C130s and Alan Joyce’s salary

Posted on September 2, 2015 by admin

Grant’s back and the boys are gobsmacked by Alan Joyce’s $12 million salary! They’re pretty sure their morals would get corrupted for that amount of money!

Still with Qantas, they’ve painted A380 VH-OQH to support the Wallabies rugby union team (Grant tries to explain what that means).

Getting into the computer games, the RAAF C130J sim at Richmond was used to take part in the global event Virtual Flag 2015.

Keeping to the Hercules theme, a Coulson C130 tanker has arrived at RAAF Richmond for NSW’s fire season.

PS: We also have bloopers for this episode which you can play via the player below:

Posted in Australia Desk | Tagged A380, Alan Joyce, C130, C130J, computer games, Coulson, morals, OQH, Qantas, RAAF, Richmond, rugby, salary, simulator, Tanker, Virtual Flag 2015, Wallabies | Comments Off

Episode 365: Qantas gets a profit & Matt Hall’s back on the podium

Posted on August 26, 2015 by admin

Steve is solo this week as Grant is out of action with a throat infection. Steve covers the huge turnaround in the Qantas full year profit ($575 million profit after a $2.8 billion loss the year before) with an excerpt of Ross Greenwood from Sydney radio station 2GB interviewing CEO Alan Joyce about why he thinks such a turnaround has been possible.

NOTE: You can hear the full version of that interview by clicking here.

Qantas confirm their order for 8 787-9s in Red Tail livery plus they still have 15 firm options and another 30 slots reserved in case they want more.

Meanwhile, Australia’s Matt Hall returned to the podium in the Red Bull Air Race recently, this time coming second to Britain’s Paul Bonhomme at Ascot in the UK. Steve plays some audio from the post race press conference.

Posted in Australia Desk | Tagged 2GB, 787, 787-9, Alan Joyce, Ascot, CEO, Matt Hall, NoGrant, Paul Bonhomme, podium, profit, Qantas, Red Bull Air Race, Ross Greenwood | Comments Off

Episode 364: Windows Borked our Oz Desk :(

Posted on August 19, 2015 by admin

Sorry guys, no Oz Desk this week as Steve’s studio machine is having a Windows 10 driver conflict between Skype & Audition. This could get messy

Posted in Skipped | Tagged crash, driver, production, Windows 10 | Comments Off

Episode 363: The Virgin, the Tiger, the Sex Party and the Max

Posted on August 12, 2015 by admin

Steve has declared that the boys won’t be talking about the Australian Sex Party despite Grant’s protestations (don’t worry, you can hear our chat with two of their pilots, Ken Hill & Tim Sheen, back in PCDU Episode 40). After getting past that tricky topic, they proceed to discuss:

Virgin Australia are going to use their subsidiary TigerAir on flights to Bali as well as completely pulling out of flights to Phuket
Virgin are also converting 17 of their 737-800 orders into 737 MAX 8 orders (and delaying them, thus hopefully saving more money) which will give them a total of 40 orders … eventually
The good news continues for Qantas as Moody’s upgrades their credit rating
Alliance Airlines sending its fleet of Fokkers up to Slovakia for heavy maintenance ‘cos it’s cheaper to fly all the way from Australia to Europe than maintain a heavy maintenance facility in Australia

PS: We also have bloopers for this episode which you can play via the player below:

Posted in Australia Desk | Tagged 737, Alliance Airlines, Australian Sex Party, Bali, Bratislava, credit rating, episode, F100, F50, F70, Fokkers, heavy maintenance, MAX, Moody's, orders, PCDU, Phuket, Qantas, Slovakia, Tiger Airways, Virgin Australia | Comments Off

Episode 362: First in Type – Mostly

Posted on August 5, 2015 by admin

It’s a week of firsts for the Australian Defence Force as the boys give progress on still more new or updated airframes coming down under:

HATS01: Airbus Helicopter EC135 T2+

The first RAAF E18G Growler is unveiled
The first RAAF P8A is under construction & due to have its first flight in mid 2016
First of 15 Airbus Helicopter EC135 T2+ helicopters (HATS01) received for Boeing to operate on behalf of the Australian Defence Force (yes, Boeing :) )
Not the first, but the seventh RAAF C17 is delivered in record time (one more C17 left to be delivered)

Boeing 787-9 in Qantas colours

Meanwhile, the Qantas long-haul pilots have approved a new wage deal which includes provisions for them to fly the 787-9 should Qantas actually take up the options they have for those aircraft.

To finish with, we are sad to report on the terrible news for the Australian helicopter charter industry as Bronwyn Bishop resigns. Yes, it’s a satirical take on a recent Australian political scandal (here’s a summary of the helicopter flight scandal).

Posted in Australia Desk | Tagged 787, 787-9, ADF, Airbus, Airbus Helicopters, Boeing, Bronwyn Bishop, C17, charter helicopter industry, E18G, EC135, Growler, HATS, HATS01, long haul, options, P8A, Poseidon, Qantas, RAAF | Comments Off

Episode 361: Qantas Turning the Corner?

Posted on July 29, 2015 by admin

The boys are back in the studio and Grant’s trying VERY hard not to explode over the news that Qantas is doing very well thanks to Alan Joyce. It’s not that they haven’t turned the corner and improved their stock price, it’s more that they’ve done it despite Joyce’s previous management disasters :)

Meanwhile, Qantas’ competitor Virgin Australia got the gong for most punctual domestic carrier in June. Nice to see as they’ve been out of the running for a while.

Posted in Australia Desk | Tagged Alan Joyce, deregulation, disasters, domestic, management, privatisation, punctual, Qantas, Virgin Australia | Comments Off

Episode 360: Grant Made it to Fiji

Posted on July 22, 2015 by admin

Steve’s on his own in the studio because Grant finally made it away for his vacation, although not to Bali as originally planned. Instead, he and his lovely wife flew halfway across the Pacific to Fiji. Now, of course, you’d think he’d be living it up on the beach and all, but Grant still managed to find his way to a local airport from where he filed a quick report for us.

After the report, Steve notes that for the recent soccer matches held here in Australia, Liverpool FC arrived in a chartered A340 while Real Madrid arrived in a chartered A380. Who says there’s no money in sport?

Posted in Australia Desk | Tagged A340, A380, Bali, Fiji, Liverpool FC, Pacific, Real Madrid, soccer | Comments Off