Which airline is better? Are there any significant differences between the two?

If you're flying to certain places, you don't have a choice. Qantas flys more routes. Out of 6 flights, we are only flying on Virgin Blue once. Virgin Blue is generally cheaper, especially the midweek flights.

If you book on line then the difference in price can sometimes be very little. <BR>On Virgin you get no meals, have to pay for your coffee or tea and anything you have to eat, have to pay excess baggage at the drop of a hat ( I have NEVER have had to pay excess on Qantas and last week brought home a Persian Carpet in my suitcase without charge) and took a large framed picture on board.<BR>Virgin use 737s and they have an extra 30 seats compared to Qantas's 737s so if you are travelling more than one hour it can be very uncomfortable. <BR>Finally you have to put up with the Virgin image of &quot; spunky crew&quot; ( their words not mine)<BR>Further each and every time I have been on Virgin ( never again) it has been late by up to 3 hours. NOT GOOD ENOUGH SQUISH AIR!!!!

Virgin Blue is Australia's discount airline. Generally speaking they offer a no frills service, no food or drinks inflight (they must be purchased), this may or may not be a bugbear particularly on longer flights - but generally because of the cheaper cost of the flight this can be overlooked.<BR><BR>Just a note, often when comparing the costs of the same two flight destinations betweeen the two airline Qantas can often come out the cheapest particularly for flights booked far in advance. <BR><BR>Also Virgin absolutely insist that you arrive for your flight at least 30 minutes before your flight. Any later and you seriously run the risk of not getting on the flight. This has happened to a couple of friends recently and they had to pay about $100 to get onto the next flight. They arrived 20 minutes before the flight was due to take off.<BR>

Three words....Qantas, Qantas, Qantas

Just a thought - does anyone know what the outcome of the talks within Virgin and the ground Engineers as to what the outcome was with pilots doing the pre-flight checks and not engineers? <BR>For those people who are not up with this story, Virgin Blue were using their pilots to preflight-check the planes when it has always been the job of an engineer to do this due in no small part I should think to the fact that Engineers are trained do the mechanical checks and pilots fly planes, but if cost cutting is the aim here then why not do away altogether with Engineers and also flight attendants as I am sure that after take off one of the pilots could come out &amp; check passengers. To go even further passengers could pick up a paper bag of one drink and an apple at boarding and do away with cabin crew altogether.<BR>That alone may answer RJames's question.

For reliability of service and on-timeness I've found Vigin way ahead recently. Yes qantas do give you some food - but I'd rather get there on time! The last 4 flights I've taken with Qantas (over the past 2 months) have all beeen at least 40 minutes late - not good if you're connecting. However if I was flying more than 3 hours I'd probably go with Qantas as they do offer a bit more in the way of in-flight entertainment.

Virgin was way cheaper on many of our flights last August. We didn't have any problems with them and found them to be a very good airline. We didn't care about food or beverage for a 1-3 hour flight. Go with what is cheaper.

I've flown Qantas and Virginblue heaps of times and they are both great - especially if you want a cheap flight - book on the internet. Yes you have to buy food and drink on virgin, but the coffee is terrific as opposed to the brewed muck on Qantas, and the food included in the airfare on Qantas is horrible! The seats are a bit squashier, but I'm 5 foot 10 and been quite comfortable on a 2 hour trip Bris to Melb. Not sure I'd want to fly to Perth with Virgin though! Go with the cheapest!

Thanks for the feedback.<BR><BR>In response to LizF's comment that &quot;passengers could pick up a paper bag of one drink and an apple at boarding&quot; - this did happen when I flew American Airlines in Februrary. I was told to pick up a bistro lunch bag when boarding. The paper bag contained one small bag of baby carrots, a small bag package of chips, a dry bun with one slice of cheese and two slices of turkey - no lettuce, no tomato, no mayo, no mustard, etc - and a bite size brownie. Cabin crew were not totally useless - they did bring drinks around. This is all that I on a Chicago to San Francisco flight (flying time 3 1/2-4 hrs).

Gosh! RJames, at least SouthWest Airlines add a mintie and a drink in their paper bag even if they have forgotten the seat padding. But still the worst experience for me has been the &quot;first class&quot; seat from Las Vegas to Orlando in a seat which did not recline at all - well 3 inches at best - on an overnight flight. However on the plus side the drinks were free. <BR>Also you have to pay for your earphones on Virgin and they don't have TV, just music, or at least the ones that I have been on didn't have a TV. At any rate you can watch Seinfeld or Frasier on Qantas but I will leave it up to you as to whether you think that is a plus or a minus.