Queensland And Northern Territory Aerial Services (QANTAS) is 100 years old.
On November 16, 1920, two veterans of the Australian Air Force, Hudson Fysh and Paul McGinness, along with a local farmer Fergus McMaster, founded the airline which would later become Australia's national airline.
This happened just 17 years after the first motorized flight by the Wright brothers, 2 years after the end of the First World War and at the end of the last major global pandemic - the Spanish flu.
Initially, the company carried mail between Australian cities, but the big challenge was on passenger flights. 10 years later, in 1930, the airline carried passengers to / from Singapore.
By the late 1940s, it had become Australia's national company. In the 1960s, Qantas was among the first companies to introduce the jet aircraft, which revolutionized global travel.
Qantas invented the Business Class in the 1970s and moved to a fleet of Boeing 747 aircraft in the 1980s. The first Boeing 747 was introduced in August 1971.
In 1990 it was privatized, and in 2004 it founded Jetstar. It underwent major restructuring in 2014, but continued to maintain its leadership in Australia and serve customers to the highest standards.
QANTAS in pandemic.
On 19 March 2020, Qantas has suspended about 60% of domestic flights. Also suspended all international flights and detained more than 150 aircraft on the ground, as a result of the extension of travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
All 12 Airbus A380 aircraft were stored on the ground (10 at Victorville in California and 2 at LAX International Airport in Los Angeles) for a period of at least 3 years.
Qantas is the oldest airline in the world and the only one flying to every continent. QANTAS currently owns a fleet of 297 aircraft.
The airline withdrew the last Boeing 747-400 in July 2020, after almost 49 years of flying.
Celebrating 100 years of history.
The centenary was celebrated with a low-altitude flight over Sydney Harbor on the anniversary. The aircraft flew over the sky of Sydney for 100 minutes to celebrate 100 years of history.
There were over 200 passengers on board the aircraft, 100 of which were members of the company. Chief of cabin crew for QF100 flight he was the company's CEO, Alan Joyce.
The flight was performed with a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft, registered VH-ZNJ.