Tuesday's Flight 63 took off from Sydney shortly after 10 a.m. and was supposed to arrive in Johannesburg about 14 hours later. All appeared to be going smoothly until nearly five hours into the journey, when the Airbus A380 turned around over the ocean, per Flightradar24 data. It headed back to Australia and touched down in Sydney about nine hours after taking off from there.
But the aircraft also come with a passenger-to-toilet ratio in economy of just one toilet for every 90 passengers. Qantas ordered the planes with three toilets and 200 seats, configured with two toilets for the 180 economy seats and one toilet for the 20 business class seats at the front of the aircraft. Qantas said the three aircraft will have a fourth toilet added within a few years.
Justice Michael Lee stated that the $90m penalty was significantly below the maximum, and that $50m would be allocated to the Transport Workers' Union, with uncertainty over the remaining $40m allocation.
Only one airline gave me pajamas. Who doesn't love changing into a pair of pajamas for a long-haul flight? Qantas is the only one of these three airlines to provide me with a set, and they were super cozy.