Australian airline Qantas marked the beginning of its hundredth year in business today in Sydney with a huge party and a few surprise guests.
Qantas flew its newest Dreamliner from London with a special livery to kick off the celebrations.
Over 1,000 of the airline’s employees and other attendees were on hand to welcome the arrival of passengers aboard the airline’s Project Sunrise research flight. They had just made the 19 hour and 19-minute journey from London Heathrow to Sydney in the airline’s newest Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner.
The plane was specially painted in a centenary livery for the occasion, including every Qantas logo since 1920 and several versions of the carrier’s famous flying kangaroo.
The aircraft was towed to the partygoers waiting in one of Qantas’s hangars and the jet’s doors were opened to the strains of “I Still Call Australia Home” being sung by Australian pop star Guy Sebastian and the Qantas youth choir.
The airline was founded as Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Ltd (hence the acronym Qantas) on November 16, 1920 by World War I veterans Paul McGinness and Hudson Fysh. Today’s festivities were the kickoff to a year of celebrations leading up to the airline’s actual hundredth birthday next year.
While Qantas’s early operations mainly consisted of joy rides and charters, little could the founders have envisioned the airline of today – a globe-spanning player connecting five other continents to Australia with non-stop service. Qantas also holds the record as the longest continuously operating airline in the world.
Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce and the flight crew greet the crowd waiting to celebrate the airline's ... [+]
Remarking upon that history, Qantas Chairman Richard Goyder said, “We started in outback Queensland carrying mail and a few passengers in the 1920s. We grew as Australia grew, and we’ve had important support roles during wars, national disasters and celebrations.”
Today was another such celebration, and one that even included Australia’s Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, who said, “Qantas represents the best of Australia” during his remarks.
Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce, who was aboard the flight from Heathrow, noted, “Almost a century after our first flight, Qantas and Jetstar carry more than 50 million people around this country and the globe each year. I’m sure that would amaze our founders…”
He also nodded to the iconic role the airline has in Australia’s identity, saying, “A lot of Australians saw the world for the first time on a flying kangaroo. And a lot of migrants started their life in Australia when they first stepped on a Qantas plane. There are so many amazing Qantas stories that also tell the story of modern Australia. We want our centenary to be a celebration of those stories as well as how we’ll be part of taking the spirit of Australia further in the years ahead.”
To wit, the airline has recently completed two 19-plus hour flights – one from New York JFK to Sydney, and the other today from London Heathrow to Sydney. Both were meant to showcase the airline’s ambitions to link Australia to more parts of Europe and the U.S. with non-stop service and push the boundaries of current air travel and aircraft capabilities.
While that is still a few years off, one more Qantas centennial-themed novelty not only aviation enthusiasts but the rest of the public can look forward to, too, will be the collectible Qantas Centenary coin set being produced by the Royal Australian Mint to mark the occasion.
The set comprises 11 distinctive designs depicting various milestones in the company’s past. There will even be one featuring the airline’s newest jet, the Boeing 787-9, flying through a graphic 100. The Mint will produce five million of those to be released into general circulation starting in February 2020.
The Royal Australian Mint will release a Qantas coin into circulation next year.
While today’s celebrations were the kickoff to Qantas’s hundred-year milestone, the airline likely has many more festivities and announcements in store leading up to its actual hundredth anniversary. We might even see airfare deals and other limited-time opportunities, not to mention further route announcements as the airline looks forward to the next hundred years.
Disclosure: The author was invited to Qantas’s centennial celebrations as a guest of the airline, but all opinions expressed are entirely his own.
