Okay, it's time for a gripe. QANTAS, an airline I have supported and defended for years no longer has my loyalty. It all hapepned on my recent flight to New York.

It is probably their fault that boarding in Sydney was delayed 45 minutes. It is probably their fault that a smoke alarm wasn't working thereby causing consternation among the pasengers waiting to take off when five men and a ladder came marching down the aisle to the back of the plane. It took twenty minutes for the men to punch up one of the panels, reconnect the thing and secure the panel when they were done.


Okay, it is not their fault that a passenger got sick (maybe the men and the ladder alarmed her) and had to be deplaned along with 2 travelling companions and all their luggage.

But it is their fault that the seats in economy are jammed so closely together that it threatens health and safety especially on a long haul flight. Have OH&S ever looked into this?

And why did the toilets stink? One of the reasons for the initial delay was to clean the plane but they obviously missed this section or did they run out of deodorizer? For a minute I thought I was back on Garuda airlines twenty years ago.

Talk about running out, of course my choice of food on the menu was not available by the time they got to the back row. Okay, it happens. But surely there are some little pats of butter around for the dried out raisin scone (I'm still not sure what it was) at breakfast. I put the call button on to ask. After 10 minutes with no response, I squeezed out of the seat, tray in hand and went down to the galley. 'THey didn't supply us,' was the reply.

QANTAS you may have the reputation of being the safest airline in the world but your seating plan, your food, and your service leaves much to be desired, and given that you slashed the value of frequent flyer points by half this year, I shall be looking elsewhere for my next long flight.

I hear Etihad is very good value for money.