Malaysia Airlines plans to add a number of new international routes to its schedule and increase services to cities the airline already flies to. Starting on 15 November Haneda Airport in Tokyo will have three non-stop flights per week taking off from Kota Kinabalu. As of 15 January two flights per week will serve Japan’s Osaka.

Managing director and chief executive of Malaysia Airlines, Tengu Azmil Zahruddin, said by establishing a hub in Kota Kinabalu passengers would be given improved scheduling and better connectivity as it will no longer be necessary to factor Kuala Lumpur into the equation. Azmil added that passengers using the new hub would also be the first to experience the airline’s brand new Boeing 737-800 planes.

Azmil described that aircraft as offering more room, higher ceilings and better ambience. He added that all of the aircraft’s latest generation seats would supply passengers with their very own on-demand in-flight entertainment.

Malaysia Airlines plans to have six aircraft working out of the new hub by June 2011. There will also be a team of 150 ground staff working in Kota Kinabalu alongside 250 cabin crew. Azmil said new international destinations would be announced as plans develop.

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.

Qantas has however announced that services between Australia and the UK will be unaffected by the problems with BA. The airline said that it was monitoring any developments very closely so that it would be able to hand on information to its customers.

The latest British Airways strike by cabin crew commenced after union bosses failed to come to an agreement over its members working conditions and pay with senior airline executives. Further industrial action is due to take place between May 30 and June 3, and then between June 5 and June 9.

A Qantas spokesman said that the carrier was currently trying to communicate with all customers who might be affected in Europe. He added that the airline would be doing everything in its power to make sure that disruption to Qantas passengers was kept to a minimum. He went on to say, however, that it was going to be a complicated job working out which short-haul BA flights were going to remain in service.

Qantas said that the plan at present was to get all customers affected by the disruption onto the next available flight to their destination, whether this was with British Airways or with another carrier.

Ms Rowland also claims that she and a number of people she was travelling with were treated like small children. She said it was a shame that everything had to get so unpleasant because her previous experiences with Qantas had all been very good.

Ms Rowland’s scathing remarks were made after she had disembarked the aircraft at Sydney Airport’s domestic terminal. The singer was in town to attend the Supafest extravaganza at the Acer Arena. Also on the flight were singers Eve, Akon and Sean Paul, although there has been no suggestion that they too were involved in the incident.

Initial reports suggest that a possible reason for the problems between Ms Rowland, her entourage and the cabin crew was that some of the passengers may have been trying to use their mobile phones after they had been told not to as part of standard safety procedures. Another reason may have been that some passengers were sitting in seats which had not been allocated to them.

When Qantas was asked to comment a spokesman said that all he could say at that time was that passengers need to pay attention to the instructions they are given by the airline staff.

Spokesman for the airline Simon Westaway said that the flight attendant had obtained the passengers details from a boarding pass and tried to add her as a friend on the social networking site.

The airline launched an investigation and spoke with the flight attendant, deciding that he should be dismissed.

The teenager was a passenger on a Jetstar flight from the Sunshine Coast to Melbourne with her mother an 16 year-ld sister when the flight attendant initially spoke to her near the plane’s toilets.

The girl’s mother said that her daughters did not give the attendant their names but the younger one received a friend request which was followed by messages asking why she hadn’t added him as a friend.

Mr Westaway said that a very senior manager had contacted the mother and expressed an apology to her.

It was originally believed that the cabin crew member accessed the passengers details from the flight manifest, but Westaway understands that he got the girls’ name from a boarding pass.

Westaway said that all Jetstar employees are encouraged to take a warm approach with customers and engage with them, and policy on social networking sites stated that staff must portray the company in a positive manner.