The Bug's travel editor Don Gordon-Brown was recently flicked across to QANTAS when his specially chartered Ansett flight from Melbourne to Brisbane was cancelled due to operational requirements. That's right, it broke down. His first Qantas flight for years turned out to be a harrowing experience but he lived to tell the tale.

PLANE TALKING

THERE'S a point in every regular air traveller's life when you've got to ask yourself the questions.
Has Qantas got the better serviced fleet? Or do you trust private enterprise and Ansett to have newer planes?
Do you fly with the once proudly nationally owned carrier – or do you chance it with Ansett?
I must admit in all the excitement of regular air travel in recent years, I've quite forgotten why I went with one and not the other.
But considering an aircraft crash is one of the most powerful impacts in the world and could blow your head clean off – not to mention other body parts and various viscera – you've really got to ask yourself the question: Are you're feeling lucky today? Well, are you punk?
Have you flown six times without incident .... or is it only five.
Well, are ya feeling lucky, pu....
Hold on! Now I remember how the decision came about.
Partly by studying both airlines' fleets. Factoring in their fleets' models, but mainly ages. Trying to work out if brand new cars are more likely to breakdown than older models that are well run in. By attending both departure lounges and trying to absorb the prevailing mood - the general ambiance of each carrier's customers. Qantas had a bit more public service traffic; Ansett the private business suits and, maybe, a smidgen more casually dressed folk and family groups.
Conning my way into both airline club lounges on the pretext of joining if I liked what I freeloaded – Ansett's Golden Whingers and its competition, the Want-this! Club. Then making a few flights with each to discover the cabin service and meals were on a par. Neither good nor bad but largely indifferent.
Checking their safety records and finding that neither airline had had a major crash in the modern jet era.
And then making the decision on the basis of the only point of difference that really mattered. Bus seats.
In Sydney and Melbourne - my regular destinations over recent years - the shuttle bus to town picked up from Ansett first, so you had more chance of getting a seat. And that's how Ansett became my carrier of choice.
Some months later, I started catching taxis to save time, so the sultana d'etre for being an Ansett afficionardo, a Golden Whinger, evaporated in an instant. But what the heyfidllediddle! I stuck with Ansett.
And the choice appears to have been sound, for Ansett has not crashed and burned with me on board once! Not even a hint of disaster. Apart from the occasional stale salad rolls for lunch, that is.
So being shunted across to Qantas the other day shouldn't have been a major problem to a seasoned veteran, right? No sweat. Well, not straight away.
But that was before the cabin crew closed doors and CROSS-CHECKED!
Then two incidents conspired to have me pondering the strange twist of fate that had me tightly pocketed within the flying red kangaroo.
The first was the safety demonstration.
It's a safe bet that both of Australia's main airlines take safety seriously. They've got to, right? Competition aside and all that?
So why does the Qantas safety demonstration dwell on showing you the correct bracing position for a crash landing when Ansett ignores that aspect completely!
Does Qantas know something its customers don't? Is an intimate knowledge of the basic brace positions a good thing to know when you fly Qantas? Would it be wise to maintain the brace position throughout the entire flight just to be on the safe side?
Just procedures, I figured, motioning to the flight attendant after takeoff for a lightweight magazine to put my mind at ease.
This proved to be a really dumb move, for she handled me the latest Bulletin magazine. Incident number two had begun. "How safe is Qantas?" was the front page screamer. How safe was it to look inside?
Okay, so it was a cover story obviously sparked by the Qantas prang in September last year when a Jumbo ran off the Bangkok runway. The Bulletin writer conveniently included a little table of silly little mishaps over recent months. A slight power loss here. Fallible flaps there. Warning lights on the blink in more ways than one. It didn't include one I'd only just heard of in recent days: fumes in the cockpit almost put a Qantas crew to sleep. Caused by some cleaning material residue left in the air conditioning ducts or some such thing. But I did take comfort from reading that Qantas was deeply disturbed by that particular incident. That's comforting, isn't it. Qantas being deeply disturbed is far preferable to a shrug of the shoulders, a wry grin and a "don't worry about it". That's provided, of course, that Qantas was deeply disturbed about the incident occurring in the first place; not the fact it had gained media attention. Still, Qantas did express concern, and I appreciate that. Personally, I've always preferred a flight crew to remain conscious throughout any flight I might be on, especially those short-haul runs.
One of the incidents reported in the Bulletin was a flight from Brisbane where the pilot noticed the plane was very sluggish after take-off. It turns out he's raised the flaps instead of the wheels.
The key here is to be tolerant and understanding. It could have happened to anyone. How many times have you been driving your car, daydreaming about where your next job or hot meal is coming from and, instead of activating the left indicator before turning left, have yanked on the hand brake instead. Exactly. Hundreds.
No. Those people up front know exactly what they're doing. Their shiny uniforms, gold stripes and braided caps are proof enough of that.
Fate had put me onto this Qantas flight, we were already up, up and away so there was only one course of action possible under the circumstances. I asked the nearest flight attendant when the drinks service would begin.