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Planes will park on beer bottles and printer tonerThousands of Australian travellers, heading on Qantas, Jetstar or Air New Zealand toone of the region’s most spectacular mountain resorts, will fly on planes that end up standing on a revolutionary form of airport tarmac incorporating recycled beer bottles and waste printer toner.

Queenstown Airport in New Zealand’s South Island is pioneering a radical projectusing low-carbon asphalt, which incorporates waste printer toner and recycled glass. The new material will be used initially to resurface the airport’s aircraft parking area beside the terminal building. From there, who knows?

Queenstown Airport Corporation (QAC) is partnering with infrastructure and facilities company Downer on the NZD 7 million project. The new form of asphalt is said to provide a robust, durable surface in all weathers.

The project is set to start next week, for completion by 16 December in time for Christmas and the peak summer holiday season.

QAC’s general manager of operations and safety, Mike Clay, says the aircraft parking area is resealed about once every 10 years – but this time it will be a “step-change” for the airport.

“We’ve tried to incorporate sustainability into all aspects of it, from the recycled material used in the mix to reducing emissions from haulage,” Clay said.

“At the same time, we’re looking at ways to support the airlines and ground handlers to collectively minimise our carbon and environmental footprint. In particular, we’re keen to help facilitate their transition from fossil fuel-based diesel to electric ground service equipment in order to reduce carbon emissions.

“As part of this project, more space will be provided to cater for the expansion of the electric ground service fleets and ducting will be installed in the airfield parking area to provide access to electric power. This will provide immediate benefits in terms of powering the electric ground service fleets.

“It will also future-proof for the possibility of

airlines powering their aircraft with electricity whilst parked at the gate rather than fossil fuel, which would improve fuel efficiency and reduce carbon emissions.”

Clay says the airport is keen to encourage visitors, local community and airlines to donate their beer bottles and toner cartridges to help. “Reduce, Recycle and Reseal” is the message.

The airport will set up a “Trash to Treasure” stand, complete with a beer bottle recycling machine, information and videos, inside the terminal building during the works so people can donate their bottles and learn more about the process.

Downer’s general manager of surfacing operations, George Leidig, said the resealing process, called TonerPave, “uses Modified Toner Polymer made from recycled toner cartridges and will also include recycled glass sand.

“We recognise that sustainability is a journey and we hope that by using recycled materials in this project, we can deliver an innovative

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solution while helping to protect New Zealand’s finite natural resources.”

An onsite asphalt plant will reduce road haulage by 720,000km over the course of the project, which will help to keep local roads clearer and safer as well as cutting emissions.

The resurfacing will take place between 6pm and 6am six days a week, starting at the Remarkables Park side of the terminal and finishing at the lake end.

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Vietnam’s largest budget airline, known for using attractive young female flight attendants in bikinis to draw customers, has ordered an additional 50 A321neo single- aisle aircraft from manufacturer Airbus and will fly to Darwin and Brisbane next year.

Vietjet’s president and chief executive is the famous Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao – Vietnam’s first female billionaire. She signed the USD 6.5-billion aircraft purchase agreement in Hanoi this week with Christian Scherer, Airbus chief commercial officer.

On the same day, Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with engine manufacturer CFM International for long-service maintenance of LEAP-1B high-bypass turbofan jet engines. That deal is worth USD 5.3 billion.

CFM International is a 50-50 joint venture company between GE Aviation of the US and Safran Aircraft Engines (formerly known as Snecma) of France.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has already confirmed that Vietjet Air will fly from Ho Chi Minh City to Brisbane from 2019. She said the deal would make Queensland Vietjet Air’s first destination in Australia.

Darwin may beat Brisbane to the

punch – with the NT News reporting that Vietjet will fly direct to Darwin from Ho Chi Minh City from next year. The paper sourced the report to one of the country’s deputy prime ministers speaking through a translator in Hanoi ahead of the MOU signing.

Nhan Dan, the Central Organ of the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam, reported that the signings were witnessed by Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Prime Minister of Vietnam and Edouard Philippe, Prime Minister of France, during his official visit to Vietnam.

It’s only a year since Vietjet was in hot water with Vietnamese authorities over an in-flight “improvised performance” by scantily clad flight attendants in frilly underwear, feathers and sequins.

The stunt, in which some attendants wore bikinis embellished with frills and at least one other wore a more elaborate outfit with a headdress and frilly underwear, was apparently arranged on the spot to welcome home Vietnam’s Under-23 national men’s soccer team – even though the team was soundly beaten by Uzbekistan in the tournament in China.

Vietjet’s flight attendants do not wear bikinis on duty, only on special occasions.



Big order and Aussie flights for Vietnam bikini airline

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Air New Zealand has renewed and expanded its backing of a plant-based burger patty that cooks, smells and tastes like beef but contains no animal products – but the burger has yet to appear on the Tasman, where the “battle of the meat” is underway.

Virgin Australia – competing head-to-head with Air New Zealand on the Tasman, now their long-time cooperation agreement on that route has ended – is making a big deal of serving real meat burgers on its trans-Tasman flights.

Earlier this year, Virgin Australia released a video called “”Got Beef”; in which an Aussie actor walks across a beef farm and calls on Kiwi beef and lamb suppliers to contact the airline.

Now Air New Zealand has moved its meatless burger to the San Francisco route as well as the Los Angeles route. It has launched a bite-sized version of the Impossible Burger – serving Impossible Burger sliders on its San Francisco to Auckland services from now on.

The airline first collaborated with Silicon Valley food tech start-up Impossible Foods in July, becoming the first airline in the world to serve the plant-based Impossible Burger as part of its Business Premier menu on flights from Los Angeles to Auckland.

The burger’s key ingredient is the iron-

containing molecule heme, which Air New Zealand says Impossible Foods has exclusively sourced from the roots of soy plants. It’s the same heme found in animal meat, resulting in a beef-like non-meat experience.

Air New Zealand’s Inflight Customer Experience Manager Niki Chave says the burger has proved extremely popular with customers.

“The Impossible Burger has been a real favourite. Given we’re heading into a seasonal menu change in Business Premier we couldn’t resist sharing the experience with customers travelling on another of our North American routes while also giving it a bit of a twist.“Our Impossible Burger is a really generously sized serving, so this time around we’ taking the opportunity to make it a bit lighter by serving it as bite sized sliders. The dish will include three Impossible Burger sliders accompanied by tomato jalapeno chutney, sundried tomato mayo with buttermilk slaw and vegetable crisps on the side” Chave says.

The Impossible Burger sliders will be offered as part of the new Business Premier menu on flight NZ7 from San Francisco to Auckland through to the end of June 2019.

So will the sliders ever slide onto the Tasman? We shall see.



Air NZ deploys ‘Impossible’ burger on new route

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QANTAS is participating in a new trial at Brisbane Airport in partnership with SITA which eliminates the need to provide a passport and boarding pass at the lounge or boarding gate.

The facial recognition technology allows travellers to upload their passport to their mobile phone, enabling them to check in before arriving at the airport and speed up their departure experience.

The trial is limited to passengers who volunteer to take part and are travelling on flights ex BNE to Singapore, Tokyo Narita and Hong Kong, with Android phones.

Participants download the new Qantas Facial

Recognition App from the Google Play Store, and then use it to store their passport details and photo.

The data is securely stored, and as passengers pass through the airport cameras match the passport information to their face, eliminating the need to show their boarding pass.

Customers without bags will be able to proceed directly to immigration, without having to visit check-in desks or kiosks.

SITA President Asia Pacific, Sumesh Patel, said Qantas was the first airline to trial the SITA Smart Path mobile offering in Brisbane, with the pilot program providing “valuable passenger feedback to shape future



QF trials facial recognition implementations”.

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