Not to mention they're modern Tu-214s, not exactly vintage aircraft.

Actually UT has the older Tu-154. UN does have the Tu-214, but I think they've all been refitted for cargo service only.

Oops, read your post as UN, not UT. Sorry!

If only UA had 5th freedom rights on their SYD-MEL tag flights, would love to travel on a 744 on such a short sector. However they don't have rights and the flight is not bookable unless you fly exMEL all the way to SFO or LAX and v.v.

Would be good too if I can book MEL-SYD on UA and then fly SYD-YVR on AC, I'm not sure but this is not allowed, but it shows up as an option on the Star Alliance search.

Yep I learned right away back in high school that Australia and New Zealand are definitely not the same when there was a girl from Australia in one of my classes. I had remembered seeing a video once of a rugby match between New Zealand and Australia and the New Zealand team did the haka before the game and it looked to me like the Australian players were intimidated.

So when I told her the Aussies looked scared she nearly bit my head off with a "No Aussie is ever afraid of the *blank* kiwis." :mad:

Learned my lesson right then that Australia and New Zealand are quite a bit different. :cool:

Never been to either, but I do work with many Aussies and Kiwis. I am sure that they are different, but isn't that like saying that Americans (i.e., people from the U.S.) and Canadians are different? From the perspective of someone from the U.S., sure, they're different, but compared to someone from, say, France or Turkey, the cultures of Americans and Canadians are pretty similar.

Just like to a San Franciscan, a Los Angelino might as well be from another planet. But, compared to the prevailing culture in, say, New York or Alabama, there is a distinctive California culture. It's all relative!

Sorry for continuing off-topic. :( Can we at least agree that, for travel-related purposes, from a global perspective, Australia and New Zealand comprise one coherent region?

I agree with you. If someone said that ST "pretty much" had a presence in Canada because DL flies to many Canadian cities (more than AA, less than UA) I would more or less agree with them. Now, of course Canada and the US are actually joined by land unlike Australia and NZ but Canada and the US are also both bigger than Australia or NZ so there are great distances to be covered.

I describe Canada and the US as "so similar, yet so different", which I think anyone who has travelled much between the two countries would understand. I don't consider it offensive if someone says that Canada and the US are "pretty much one country". In fact, I'm quite proud that two countries with such different histories and demographics can share the same landmass so gracefully so that foreigners even consider them to be pretty much one country. Australia and NZ share the same head of state (albeit not very enthusiastically for many Australians), so I don't understand how it can be considered really offensive for NZ to get lumped in with Australia when speaking from a travel perspective.

Not really.... the quickest way between them is still a flight time of 3 hours. If you go by those numbers there are lots of places that you can then call one region.... but we don´t.

Regardless of what we call them, the fact stands that for domestic Australia, there is but one carrier that could join Star Alliance or Skyteam: Virgin Australia. While it would obviously be nice to have them in the alliance, they just don't seem terribly interested in joining at the moment.

Not to be rude, but in America, many folks think New Zealand just off shore from Australia. like a moon orbiting. And further, many folks in New York City have no idea what is west of the Hudson river other than New Jersey and California. kind of funny.

But what is there really? ;)

As an Aussie, I don't take offence at any of the comments.

However, the main difference between Australia & New Zealand compared with say the US and Canada is that you can travel between the latter two also by train, bus or car. Whereas, you cannot between Australia & New Zealand. Thus, we rely on flight only and AirNZ do not and cannot fly within Australia. It would be like AC flying domestically in the US or a US airline flying domestically in Canada.

But, imagine if you were in the US and had to rely only on AC for your *A flights (and that United and US Airways were not *A). So from SFO-DEN for example, you'd have to fly first to Canada! That's how we feel in Australia :P

I personally think *A should really be attacking hard now to get Virgin Australia and Etihad or they will be left behind.

I wouldn't get my hopes up for Etihad. Between them part owning Air Berlin and Lufthansa's current disdain for gulf carriers, Lufthansa would likely block all attempts to get Etihad to join unless something seismic happened, and even then, it would probably be a tough task getting Lufthansa and Etihad to get along.

Actually NZ do have the rights to operate Australian domestic flights however they do not have the resource to do that. Instead they have chosen to invest in VA which is the a lot less risky. I do hope soon VA can be convinced to join *A.

India: Yeap, that would be really nice. The problem is, which airline? Right now, India is a mix of dubious low-cost airlines with limited service. AI is often overpriced/disorganized, even if they perked up a bit recently. Alas, the Kingfisher of good old days is no more. 9W is, in my view, a bad joke. Indigo? They are in their little fish pound, can't even find them with Orbitz. I liked GoAir in "business" (well, at least, it was affordable on my budget), but then, they are puny, limited. Still, when I was there last month, NH and other airlines were vying to invest in a number of them now that the law changed.

Russia/Australia: Based on distances, can definitely understand. But yeah, for Aussie, same problem than with Canada... Russia, I am scared just to think to book a domestic flight there, as I wouldn't set a foot in a Soviet plane.

Middle-East: That would indeed open up some interesting possibilities. Any of them has some kind of premium economy? For long-haul (say India), I actively look for this.