Covid-19 the party pooper for airlines: How Qantas will celebrate its centenary

A Qantas Dreamliner in centenary livery. Photo / Supplied

As party pooping goes, it doesn't get much worse than what Covid-19 has done to airlines.

On top of the financial catastrophe and the human toll of up to tens of thousands of jobs gone, and millions more at risk, the pandemic has hit milestone events.

Air New Zealand was to have had events for its 80th birthday, KLM would have topped its 100th year by being centre stage as host airline at the International Air Transport Association (IATA) meeting in Amsterdam, and this month would have been a massive one for Qantas, enjoying its centenary celebrations.

Air NZ's commemorations were always going to be lower-key than they were for its 75th birthday, but it was forced to cancel a big Auckland event in early March, as well as the October launch of what would have been its showpiece international route: the non-stop Auckland-New York service.

The IATA annual meeting of the airline industry in the Netherlands was initially shifted from June to November, but as the pandemic's grip intensified it has become a virtual event. That's not what an airline lobby group pushing for eased restrictions wants at all.

Qantas kicked off what would have been a series of big events a year ago with a marathon experimental non-stop flight from London to Sydney, which was greeted by more than 1000 staff and guests at a hangar party.

The Dreamliner sported a centenary livery and the flight was part of the airline's Project Sunrise project, aimed at starting scheduled commercial services from Australia's eastern cities to London and New York from 2023.

Big announcements on the routes and aircraft were scheduled for this year.

While the airline still believes Project Sunrise will work, Covid-19 means there is no fixed date for starting the ultra-longhaul flights as recovery for commercial aviation may be up to four years away.

But on Monday November 16, Qantas will push on with celebrations in Sydney, exactly 100 years after Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services was first registered. Its founders were WWI airmen Hudson Fysh and Paul McGinness and grazier Fergus McMaster, who started with two biplanes carrying mostly mail and a few passengers.

The airline would ultimately grow to a fleet of more than 200 aircraft, carrying 50 million passengers a year - until Covid-19.

With a quarter share of what became Air New Zealand, Qantas began operating transtasman in 1940 with Short S30 flying boats. Qantas itself began flying to New Zealand in 1961 with Lockheed Electras.

A Boeing 707 was Qantas' first jet service between Australia and New Zealand from November 24, 1965. The flight operated between Sydney and Wellington.

In 1981 Qantas bought two Boeing 747SP (special performance) short fuselage aircraft specifically to operate into Wellington. The planes flew there for four years until they were replaced by Boeing 767s.

Qantas was last year flying about 150 services between Australia and New Zealand using Boeing 737s and Airbus A330s. It canned flights in March but has since resumed a limited number of transtasman services as quarantine-free travel into many states has begun.

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Chief executive Alan Joyce said last month that he hoped full travel bubbles with New Zealand and countries in Asia could come sooner than the return of flights to the United States and Europe. He said at the airline's annual meeting that with a vaccine, Qantas could resume longhaul services at the end of next year.

On Monday he will host a birthday party at Qantas' domestic business lounge at Sydney Airport for 180 people who will then take a "100 minutes for 100 years" joy flight over the city and surrounds.