Although originally set up to fly domestic flights within New Zealand, Jetconnect is now flying regularly between New Zealand and Australia. The pilots association is claiming that because Jetconnect pilots wear the same uniform as Qantas pilots, have the same identification numbers as Qantas pilots, fly on routes determined by Qantas and fly Qantas aircraft; Jetconnect is an operating division of the national flag carrier and should be treated as thus.

Barry Jackson, the pilot’s association president, said his problem with the Jetconnect situation was that it is essentially an Australian company which is able to bypass Australian legislation. Qantas has denied that this is the case. According to a spokesman, Jetconnect is a New Zealand company run by New Zealand staff flying New Zealand planes.

If Fair Work Australia decide that the pilots’ have a case and awards Jetconnect equal pay, then the implications for the rest of the airline industry could be significant.

Other companies outside the aviation business could also come under scrutiny if they are thought to be making artificial corporate arrangements in order to avoid having to give certain employees what they are entitled to under Australian law.

The incident occurred in January 2009 when 67-year-old Jean Barnard boarded a Qantas flight in Alice Springs bound for Darwin. Ms Barnard was visiting Australia from America and claims that just after she took her seat for the flight a three-year-old boy, sitting opposite, screamed at her.

The scream was so loud that it allegedly caused Ms Barnard’s eardrum to rupture and blood to collect in her ears. Ms Barnard claims that after being made deaf by the child she could no longer continue with her tour of Australia and New Zealand and was forced to return to the US.

Once back in the States, Ms Barnard filed a lawsuit against Qantas for hearing loss and physical and mental suffering. She claimed compensation for loss of earnings saying that he ability to carry on as a partner in a consulting company was impaired.

In their defence Qantas said that there was evidence that Ms Barnard was already suffering from hearing problems before the child screamed at her. The airline also said that it could not be held responsible for a three-year-old deciding to scream, explaining that there was no way a member of the cabin crew can predict if or when a child might decide to shout.

Those who think they have something original and funny to offer should upload their clips, remembering to keep them under 90 seconds, to their own YouTube pages as well as the Carrentals.co.uk page.

The person judged to have produced the best clip by the competition’s deadline, on September 30 2010, will be rewarded for their cinematic efforts by being given a 16GB Apple iPad. Two runners up will receive £50 worth of John Lewis vouchers for second place and £25 worth of vouchers for third.

Managing Director of Carrentals.co.uk, Gareth Robinson, said: “We know what an important role video plays on the Internet these days, which is why we wanted to bring together a selection of the best car-related clips for people to watch all in one place. The videos can be on anything relating to cars, but have to make the Carrentals judges laugh and they must be legal, safe and comply with all terms and conditions for the entrant to be in with a chance of winning an iPad.”

The successful short video makers will be announced by Carrentals.co.uk on October 14. Budding filmmakers wishing to have a go at winning an iPod should visit the Carrentals.co.uk website to see a run down of the competition rules.

Commenting on the new proposals, commercial director of Tiger Airways Australia, Steve Burns, said that the low-cost airline never ruled anything out if it meant the carrier could pass on savings to its customers.

We are about offering passengers the opportunity of picking up the lowest possible fare to a destination and letting that passenger decide if they wish to purchase any additional services, Mr Burns added. He went on to say that at the moment there are no plans to introduce a system similar to that proposed by Ryanair.

Ryanair claims that it is planning to begin testing the new vertical-seat system in around 12 months time, and if testing is successful, then it should be able to start offering customers the new seating arrangement six months to a year after that.

Some have accused Ryanair of announcing the new seats as a publicity stunt and accused the airline of having no real plans to install them on its aircraft. The plans have already failed to get past Boeing once, and the European Aviation Safety Agency has apparently said that the seats are unlikely to pass regulatory requirements.

According t the prosecution, Mr Marama’s comment had disturbed six other passengers so much that they reported his outburst to a member of the Jetstar staff. Commonwealth prosecutor, Greg Williams, said that whilst at the airport, Federal Police had interviewed Mr Marama who admitted that he had indeed told fellow passengers that there was an explosive device on board the aircraft.

Mr Marama’s Defence solicitor, Richard O’Shane, said that his client had only meant to say that his fellow passenger’s lives were in danger as a joke to get them moving off the aircraft more swiftly.

Magistrate Allan Comans said that people were understandably likely to panic when such allegations are made on board aircraft. He described Mr Maramas comments as irresponsible and asked that he pay $4,000 and a conviction be recorded.

Another Jetstar passenger has also appeared before Magistrate Comans recently. Yoshiki Hasui, 42, from Japan, was charged with being disorderly and offensive on Flight JQ16 flying into Cairns from Osaka. Magistrate Comans heard how Mr Hasui had been abusive towards one of the female Jetstar flight attendants. Mr Hasui used a translator to protest his innocence, but was fined $1,000 and told he must pay it before he leaves the country to return to Japan.

Air New Zealand, and Pacific Blue’s parent company Virgin Blue, say that they think the merger will be good for competition. They claim that they will be better able to take on Qantas and Jetstar on the routes if they form an alliance.

Mr Fitzgerald said that if prices were to rise, then price sensitive Australian tourists might start to consider bypassing Wellington as a place where they wish to spend their tourist dollars. He added that on average, visitors spent more than $2,000 on their holidays in the capital. He pointed out that it would only take a few thousand tourists to decide to travel elsewhere to start costing Wellington millions of dollars.

Mr Fitzgerald also said that Wellington only had three carriers operating on the trans-Tasman routes. Auckland and Christchurch both have seven airlines operating out of their airports meaning that competition will remain up and prices should remain low, especially because of the presence of giants like Emirates.

Since Pacific Blue became the third airline to compete on the trans-Tasman Wellington route four years ago, the city’s market has grown by around 44 per cent. Mr Fitzgerald said that talk of an alliance now put all of that under threat.

The next biggest customer is Qantas, which has ordered 20 of the world’s largest passenger jetliners. Some supporters of Airbus are hoping that the aircraft’s future will be similar to that of the Boeing 747. When it first hit the market in the 1970s no airline was really interested other than Pan American World Airways. However, fast forward a few years and the 747 is one of the most successful passenger jets ever.

Airbus is confidant that the Emirates order will encourage others to step forward and take a fresh look at the double-decker. Mary Anne Grezyn, an Airbus spokeswoman, said that orders for the airliner have so far been steady and that as traffic begins to increase so will the interest in a plane capable of holding 500 passengers.

Airbus has been plagued by technical difficulties and delays. However, managing partner of G2 Solutions, an aerospace consultancy, Michel Merluzeau, said that the additional Emirates order indicated that the problems with the aircraft may finally have been sorted out. He pointed out that the A380 seemed to be selling in the emerging markets, and the new order by Emirates would be seen by others as an important endorsement of the aircraft.

Airbus currently has 234 orders for the Airbus A380 from 17 airlines, including Singapore Airlines, British Airways and Lufthansa.

He went on to say that intercontinental mergers were not happening at the present time, but predicted that the situation would change. He said that he hoped that when it does, Qantas would be at the vanguard.

In 2008 a tie-up between Qantas and British Airways was abandoned after the bosses of the two airlines failed to come up with an agreement on how to fairly split ownership. The main problem was that BA was ahead of Qantas in terms of revenue, but Qantas led BA in terms of market value.

A merger of the two flag carriers would have resulted in an airline worth $24 billion in sales and with a combined fleet of around 500 aircraft. Although the deal fell through, Qantas and BA are still joined through their membership of the Oneworld alliance. British Airways is due to complete a tie-up with Iberia, another Oneworld member, later in the year, and is also forging stronger links with American Airlines for transatlantic cooperation.

Joyce said that Qantas was currently doing well in the Asia-Pacific market, but that long-haul flights to the UK and Europe were suffering. He added that although there was some evidence that the business market was becoming healthier, there was still a long way to go.

Andrew McEvoy, Tourism Australia’s managing director said that teaming up with Qantas was a crucial move in selling Australia to the rest of the world. Rob Gurney, from Qantas, added that it made complete sense for the nations flag carrier to join up with Tourism Australia. He said that the airline had already pumped around $90 million into promoting the country over the last year.

The second phase of the campaign has just been launched with the roll out of a new television commercial. The commercial features normal Australians and a smattering of well known actors singing a specially composed anthem in some of the country’s most recognisable locations.

Tourism Australia said that it wanted the new campaign to be a back to basics effort, after the 2006 ‘So Where The Bloody Hell Are You?’ campaign failed to win over audiences. 2008’s ‘Come Walkabout’ campaign was the victim of bad timing as the world plunged into recession.

The ‘There’s Nothing Like Australia’ song was penned by Josh Abrahams, who says that he wanted it to be simple. He added that he wanted to concentrate on getting the melody right, rather than going for a production driven sound. The song has had a mixed reaction, with some saying it sounds like Australia hasn’t moved on from the ‘70s yet.

At the launch, Ms Moore said that electric vehicles, with their zero per cent carbon emissions, are a key to reducing the pollution, smog and congestion caused by the 700,000 vehicles which passed through Sydney every day. She added that with walking, cycling and improvements in the city’s public transport system, electric powered vehicles would contribute to making Sydney a greener place in which to live.

Sydney currently has around 3,000 members of car share schemes, including a number of small businesses. There are already 120 car parking spaces dedicated to those who use such schemes, more than are available in any other Australian city.

At the launch of the new facility, Ms Moore said that Sydney had now joined cities like Amsterdam, London, San Francisco and Philadelphia in providing its citizens with access to greener modes of transport. She added that she had promised to improve Sydney’s green transport solutions at the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit in December, and that the launch of the new charging facility was a step in the direction of providing the city with such modes of transport.

Co-founder of GoGet, one of Sydney’s most popular car-share schemes, Bruce Jeffreys, said that he hoped that the new charging facility would be the first of many to be introduced across the country as the demand for greener travel solutions increased.